Here’s a civics lesson.
It has to do with the issue of the minimum wage. The Obama administration has been advocating
a raise in the minimum wage: “It’s time
to give America a raise.” Of course,
business friendly conservatives oppose such a move – not surprising. What’s a federalist’s take?
Well, here is mine. I
believe that central to federalist thinking is the value of collective members
having as much as possible – that is, as much as possible within reasonable
parameters – equal standing, equal consent.
That is, further, that each member of the collective is not coerced into
either belonging or doing his/her expected roles within the collective, any
collective. That goes for a family, a
church, a community organization, a labor union, a city, a state, a
nation. When we speak of the larger
collectives, such as cities or nations, more abstract means of membership,
stake commitments, and coercion are involved.
By more abstraction, a commensurable use of numbers comes into play as
trends and averages are used to determine to what degree interactions are based
on federated notions of membership and participation. And with this context, such an issue as the
minimum wage takes on importance.
One’s work, in a federated union, is more than just an
economic activity. For most, work takes
up significant portions of one’s life; it provides sustenance both
psychological and physical. It is a communitive
statement of belonging, contributing, and a source of relative importance
within the collective. To maintain the
federalist character of a collective, to the extent possible, each job or
career should provide certain assets:
enough remuneration so as to secure survival needs for one’s family,
enough education to stay true to the value of equal opportunity, enough
entertainment to support mental health, and enough time with fellow family
members so that the required time away from them does not become a cause of
family dysfunction. In short, what one
makes in terms of pay becomes not just a number on a ledger in some business
accounting book, but a statement of human dignity.
Yet this perspective is not shared by all. If it were, I would say the minimum wage
would have, in real terms, kept up with increases in productivity. Attempts to study this question in terms of “keeping
up with inflation” can be tricky. I prefer
my above approach. Students should be
exposed to every which way it is measured – and the internet very easily can
help students with that. But a class can
use my “federalist” approach and then can be exposed to an array of
conservative arguments against raising the rate. Below, I offer four such arguments derived
from a book review of Arthur C. Brooks’ book, The Conservative Heart: How to
Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Productive America.[1]
Arguments against raising the minimum wage:
·
The
main argument is that if you raise the price of anything, you lower the amount
of it being purchased. That goes for
fruit, furniture, or workers’ time and labor.
So, and this is the main offense, it limits the number of people who can
“earn success” – the basis of true happiness.
·
Raising
the minimum wage will raise the costs of production that will be only passed on
to consumers. So, for example, an
industry hard hit by this move will be the fast-food restaurant chains that are
frequented heavily by low income customers.
It is, therefore, low income people who will be paying these increased
costs.
·
Minimum
wage increase will not hit, to a large measure, those who are meant to be
benefited. This is because a raise in
the minimum wage will go to individuals above the poverty line. Half of the beneficiaries live in family
households that make over $35,000 a year and a quarter go to families that make
over $75,000 a year. A mandated raise in
the minimum wage is ill targeted, missing, to a significant level, the low
income population it is meant to help.
·
Last
(at least in terms of this book’s offering), raising the minimum wage is not as
good a policy in helping the working poor as providing earned-income tax
credits which will increase the take-home pay of such workers. Credits do this by finely targeting the
benefit to those who need it. I find
this curious in that a lot of conservative rhetoric is geared toward that
portion of the work force who “don’t pay taxes.”
Students can review the literature about measuring the
minimum wage over time, discuss the various ways of evaluating government
policy concerning the minimum wage, and then review, discuss, and evaluate the
conservative arguments against raising the minimum wage using a federalist
criterion I provide above.
By and by, can conservatives come up with one policy position
that does not equate to higher profits for businesses? Just asking.
[1]
Mankiw, N. G.
(2015). Compassionate
conservative. The New York Times, Book Review section, August 2, p. 10.
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