The idea of raising the minimum wage is associated with liberals, and for good reason. But there's an article in Vanity Fair by Kurt Eichenwald that lays out a persuasive case for a higher minimum wage. While Eichenwald appears to be quite liberal and the venue his piece is published in certainly is, a lot of the arguments made can have appeal to conservatives.
While I have some differences with how conservatism is developing in the 21st century, and my heart is still with the pre-1968 Democratic Party, the name of this blog also underscores that my first political hero was Ronald Reagan, and I've yet to vote for a Democratic candidate for president in my lifetime. I haven't voted for a Democratic Senate candidate since 1988.
The point to this brief personal history is that I'm not instinctively inclined to back what Eichenwald says. Furthermore, I think there are some missing elements to his argument, gaps that I would like to see filled before getting on board. But what he does write is persuasive, fact-based and is the solid foundation for an argument to substantially raise the minimum wage. I'd like to make my own appeal to conservatives--especially Catholic conservatives--to consider what he's written, because his case does align with a lot of our core values.
If we were to summarize Eichenwald's argument in a nutshell it's this--corporations, from McDonald's to Walmart, pay their employees dirt wages, barely survivable, if at all. They then rely on government assistance programs to pick up the slack.
In the name of Ronald Reagan, what is this other than blatant corporate freeloading? Keep in mind, when we say the government is picking up some of the slack, it's for basics--food, shelter and medical care. The people in need clearly aren't lazy--they're doing a job that most people would consider beneath them. If we value work and don't like freeloaders, then the correct side to be on in this case is the employee who should be getting paid a livable wage.
The argument that the company won't survive simply doesn't wash either. The obscenely high CEO pay in this country is proof that there's no shortage of money to go around. Is it really creeping socialism to suggest that the person who serves your Big Mac actually be able to afford medical care, and that the CEO might be able to get by on six cars in the garage rather than twelve (before you call that an exaggeration, my last boss before I became a freelancer really did have a 12-car garage)?
I would argue that corporate abuses like this illustrate the sharp divide between establishment Republicanism, which shills for big business, and populist Republicanism, which has focused more on small business owners. The latter are actually a part of their communities, and it's their tax dollars that are being used to subsidize the labor costs of corporate America.
Can anyone explain to me why this makes sense, why it is in any way of reflective of conservative values?
Translating the right values into the right policy is never without a mess, and there are some aspects of this that I'm still shaky on and it pertains to how a substantial increase in the minimum wage would affect small business.
Small business are on a smaller profit margin, and I am concerned that there would be layoffs of employees on the margins of the business. It might be a spouse who's not making a living income standing on its own, but paired up with the other spouse, provides a critical safety net for the family.
One possible solution is to exempt businesses of a certain size (say 50 or fewer employees), but that discourages growth. What if a company has 45 employees and is growing and wants to expand? The last thing you want is a policy that hinders the growth of a firm that knows what it's doing.
Another concern, albeit quite marginal, is that a high minimum wage would make hiring high school kids impractical. This one I'm willing to dismiss. I understand a job teaches a high school student the work ethic, but there are other ways to do that, and I don't think some extra summer work for a student is more important than basic living wages for the provider(s) for a family.
Finally, a point for Catholic conservatives to consider. The tradition of our Church teaches that there are four sins that cry out for vengeance from heaven. The fact that murder and sodomy are among them animates our belief in the rights of the unborn, and that marriage is between a man and a woman. But the denial of workers their just wages is another one, and when someone works for you, yet can't afford all of the basics of life, that strikes me as just such a denial.
I know there's an emotional reaction against agreeing with any idea that sounds like it might come (indeed does come) from President Obama or House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), but on this particular topic there is an intersection of Catholic values and those held by the Secular Left. And there's nothing wrong with occasionally agreeing with someone you otherwise want voted out of office
I'd like to say that I've figured out a way to reconcile the problems a small business would have with a higher minimum wage, but I haven't. I'll leave that to the people who study this stuff full-time. I can say though, that on balance, the case for raising the minimum wage is much stronger than the argument against it, and that case can be firmly rooted in traditional conservative values.
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