A Job Should Keep You Out of Poverty, Not Keep You In It
By Rev. Dr. Paul H. Sherry
from Center for American Progress
Wages are a bedrock moral issue. The minimum wage is where society draws the line: This low and no lower.
Our bottom line is this: A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it.
The minimum wage has become a poverty wage instead of an anti-poverty wage. A low minimum wage gives a green light to employers to pay poverty wages to a growing share of the workforce – not just workers at the minimum, but also above it. Workers have not been getting their fair share of the benefits of rising worker productivity.
Wages have been so eroded that today about one out of four workers makes the $9-and-change-equivalent of the hourly minimum wage of 1968. Poverty rates are higher now than in the 1970s thanks in part to the falling minimum wage. Around the country, minimum wage earners and other low-paid workers have turned increasingly to food banks and homeless shelters {you only qualify if you have children under the age of 18 OR are elderly!!}, which cannot keep up with the rising demand.
"The eighth and most meritous degree of charity is to anticipate charity by preventing poverty," the Jewish philosopher Maimonides observed. It is immoral that the minimum wage keeps people in poverty instead of out of poverty.
Successful businesses, large and small, show that good wages are good for business as well as workers. "Paying your employees well is not only the right thing to do but it makes for good business," Costco CEO James Sinegal told Business Week. Joel Marks, national director of the American Small Business Alliance, affirms, "Fair wages are good for business."
Prophets have been calling through the millennia for economic justice. The scriptures devote passage after passage to concern for the impoverished and exploited, and challenge us – indeed, command us – to stand for justice. In the words of Amos 5:24, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an overflowing stream." (NRSV)
The Golden Rule – the Ethic of Reciprocity – is the most universal moral value: Do to others what you would have them do to you.
Violating the Golden Rule, Congress has taken eight pay raises since 1997, while giving none to minimum wage workers. Violating the Golden Rule, CEO pay has increased astronomically, while a growing number of workers can't make ends meet. {Just to survive~~rent, insurance & utility bills, gasoline for commuting to work, FOOD~~requires a minimum of $1000 and $1200 is better. You actually could afford fresh fruit and vegetables then or leaner cuts of meat to eat......plus you might be able to save for those inevitable rainy day expenses: car repairs, new tires, going to the doctor.}
As we observe in our new report, "A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Businesses and Our Future," raising the minimum wage is an economic imperative for the enduring strength of our workforce, businesses, communities and economy. Raising the minimum wage is a moral imperative for the very soul of our nation.
The Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign is a nonpartisan interfaith and community initiative to raise the minimum wage nationally and in selected states. Sponsored by more that 50 faith-based and community organizations, our ongoing educational and action campaign informs people about the severity of conditions facing low-wage working people and families and advocates for constructive change.
Currently, in addition to ongoing work at the federal level, the Campaign has Let Justice Roll organizers at work in Ohio and Michigan and expects to have organizers shortly in Arizona and Arkansas. Campaign members are also working in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Colorado and elsewhere.
We are very encouraged by the response we are getting to the Campaign in the interfaith community and beyond. People see clearly the injustice of the fact that minimum wage employees working full time earn only poverty wages of $5.15 an hour – just $10,700 a year – a loss of more than 40 percent in purchasing power since 1968.
Over the recent Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, we sponsored Living Wage Days in order to remind people of Dr. King's vision of justice for working people and to build additional support for the Campaign. Dr. King wrote, "There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American (worker) whether he is a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid, or day laborer." Based on this vision, worship services and rallies were held in at least 26 states, including more than 60 events in Ohio and another 20 in Arkansas.
For further information about the Campaign at the state and federal level, and to download or order "A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future" and other resources, please visit our website, Let Justice roll. We are eager to involve additional people and organizations in the Campaign and invite you to sign up at our website or contact me at mailto:PSher973@aol.com.
Rev. Dr. Paul H. Sherry is the Campaign Coordinator of the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign, Coordinator of the Anti-Poverty Program of the National Council of Churches and co-author, with Holly Sklar, of "A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future."
Top of Page
from Center for American Progress
Wages are a bedrock moral issue. The minimum wage is where society draws the line: This low and no lower.
Our bottom line is this: A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it.
The minimum wage has become a poverty wage instead of an anti-poverty wage. A low minimum wage gives a green light to employers to pay poverty wages to a growing share of the workforce – not just workers at the minimum, but also above it. Workers have not been getting their fair share of the benefits of rising worker productivity.
Wages have been so eroded that today about one out of four workers makes the $9-and-change-equivalent of the hourly minimum wage of 1968. Poverty rates are higher now than in the 1970s thanks in part to the falling minimum wage. Around the country, minimum wage earners and other low-paid workers have turned increasingly to food banks and homeless shelters {you only qualify if you have children under the age of 18 OR are elderly!!}, which cannot keep up with the rising demand.
"The eighth and most meritous degree of charity is to anticipate charity by preventing poverty," the Jewish philosopher Maimonides observed. It is immoral that the minimum wage keeps people in poverty instead of out of poverty.
Successful businesses, large and small, show that good wages are good for business as well as workers. "Paying your employees well is not only the right thing to do but it makes for good business," Costco CEO James Sinegal told Business Week. Joel Marks, national director of the American Small Business Alliance, affirms, "Fair wages are good for business."
Prophets have been calling through the millennia for economic justice. The scriptures devote passage after passage to concern for the impoverished and exploited, and challenge us – indeed, command us – to stand for justice. In the words of Amos 5:24, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an overflowing stream." (NRSV)
The Golden Rule – the Ethic of Reciprocity – is the most universal moral value: Do to others what you would have them do to you.
Violating the Golden Rule, Congress has taken eight pay raises since 1997, while giving none to minimum wage workers. Violating the Golden Rule, CEO pay has increased astronomically, while a growing number of workers can't make ends meet. {Just to survive~~rent, insurance & utility bills, gasoline for commuting to work, FOOD~~requires a minimum of $1000 and $1200 is better. You actually could afford fresh fruit and vegetables then or leaner cuts of meat to eat......plus you might be able to save for those inevitable rainy day expenses: car repairs, new tires, going to the doctor.}
As we observe in our new report, "A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Businesses and Our Future," raising the minimum wage is an economic imperative for the enduring strength of our workforce, businesses, communities and economy. Raising the minimum wage is a moral imperative for the very soul of our nation.
The Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign is a nonpartisan interfaith and community initiative to raise the minimum wage nationally and in selected states. Sponsored by more that 50 faith-based and community organizations, our ongoing educational and action campaign informs people about the severity of conditions facing low-wage working people and families and advocates for constructive change.
Currently, in addition to ongoing work at the federal level, the Campaign has Let Justice Roll organizers at work in Ohio and Michigan and expects to have organizers shortly in Arizona and Arkansas. Campaign members are also working in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Colorado and elsewhere.
We are very encouraged by the response we are getting to the Campaign in the interfaith community and beyond. People see clearly the injustice of the fact that minimum wage employees working full time earn only poverty wages of $5.15 an hour – just $10,700 a year – a loss of more than 40 percent in purchasing power since 1968.
Over the recent Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, we sponsored Living Wage Days in order to remind people of Dr. King's vision of justice for working people and to build additional support for the Campaign. Dr. King wrote, "There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American (worker) whether he is a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid, or day laborer." Based on this vision, worship services and rallies were held in at least 26 states, including more than 60 events in Ohio and another 20 in Arkansas.
For further information about the Campaign at the state and federal level, and to download or order "A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future" and other resources, please visit our website, Let Justice roll. We are eager to involve additional people and organizations in the Campaign and invite you to sign up at our website or contact me at mailto:PSher973@aol.com.
Rev. Dr. Paul H. Sherry is the Campaign Coordinator of the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign, Coordinator of the Anti-Poverty Program of the National Council of Churches and co-author, with Holly Sklar, of "A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future."
Top of Page
posted by conservative~by~nature | 10:50 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home