Michael Thompson wrote:
A "living wage" is a subjective construct that, even if we define it
as objectively as we can, has no business being solved at the city
contract level. ...
...We already have a minimum wage in this state. A minimum wage
amounts to a tax on employers for workers who lack substantive skills
that would allow them to get a better paying job.
This position, that we have a minimum wage and presumably, therefore,
our butts are covered entirely discounts reality. The minimum wage is
set at $6.15 an hour. A loaf of edible bread costs, at minimum, $2.69
(not top of the line "bakery" bread, but just one layer above inedible
at Rainbow or Cub). You cannot discuss the lives of the residents of
this city in terms of a null class. With two working adults, no family
of four can live on $12.30/hr for an 80 hour week. No family of one can
live on it either. It is a null class.
Those who support the concept of a livable wage are saying that we can
only discuss this issue if we begin with a number that is real. When we
posit the notion that a figure like $6.15/hr. is the same as livable, we
create a firestorm of new problems and exacerbate problems we already have.
We can argue all day and all night over whether it is a city council, a
county commission, a state legislature, a federal congress which should
make the statement that there is an absolute minimum level for which no
adult with enough skill to take the job (fill out the application, show
up for the interview, pass the skill test, etc.) may be asked to work.
But it is most certainly within the realm of what government does --if,
indeed, it is of, for, and by the people, --to set the parameters of
what is minimally acceptable behavior on every level of civil society.
That's the reason we tolerate government at all
It is counter productive for the polis, on any level, to tolerate a
standard of living so low that it creates monumental social dysfunction
which we must then subsidize with greater taxes in order to avoid
creating the conditions which support anarchy and revolution.
Is that socialism? I don't know. I've never quite understood what that
term means and its used so loosely its meaning has become broadened into
a thin gruel. If socialism means having the perspicacity to insure we
won't have to go through the pain and agony of revolution with bombs and
guns and blood and gore, then fine. I'll take it.
WizardMarks, Central
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