The Right’s Wrong Turn on a Living Wage

Advocating an increase in the minimum wage or standing on the “living wage” soap box can raise the ire of many conservatives. And they will try to pull rabbit out of the hat to prove to you that higher wages really hurt the working stiff and aren’t necessary.

Witness this interesting diverting tactic that some conservatives might use to deflect questions of the declining wage of American workers. I recently heard the response of a conservative economist when posed with the question of effects of a declining standard of living of American workers. He adroitly steered the question away from the issue of wages to the buying power of consumers, stating that for a mere $2000, the consumer could purchase a bevy of items that 20 years ago would have been out of reach for him or her. These items included a personal computer, a DVD player, a cell phone, and numerous other consumer items.

But what he neglected to do was answer the question. Almost all of the items mentioned wouldn’t be consider necessities. Necessities would be:
housing – with costs increasing dramatically over those 20 years of decreasing prices,
heating – with increases in energy prices,
health care – also with dramatic costs increases,
gasoline - which all know hasn’t gotten any cheaper lately

When you examine how real wages have fallen over the past 30 years and place it against paying for the increased necessities of life, you can easily see through the “buying power” argument. Plus, you add to this equation the new reality that to get prices so low on consumer products, you have to outsource jobs to other countries. This outsourcing puts the American worker out of the job that paid him/her a living wage and into the nether-realm of just-over-minimum-wage land.

Some conservatives will also point out the there have been increases in real wages and that all minimum jobs are counted in the statistics when liberals cite “inflated” numbers of people earning only minimum wage.

Okay, for arguments sake, let’s give one of our displaced workers a job in the new economy right at the average hourly wage. Let’s call him Joe and say, he makes, $8.25, which is what a study shows cited by the Heritage Foundation (http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm491.cfm).

That $8.25 per hour equals just over $17,000 before taxes. So, let’s give Joe a take home pay of $15,000. Divide that $15,000 by 12 for the monthly expenses and you get $1250 a month. Now, we have to give old Joe some liabilities. A wife (a stay-at-home model) and a child (2 years old).

Let’s examine Joe’s Monthly Budget:
Housing (2 bedroom apt) $650
Heating $ 80
Gasoline $ 80
Health Care $350
Car payment $200
Phone $ 45
Food $200
TOTAL $1605

As you can see, Joe, to provide the basics has out striped his take home pay. Joe could do without a car. Then he could do without the insurance that wasn’t included. And I guess that health care is a luxury that he can’t afford, too. Too bad that when his child gets an ear infection, he shows up at the emergency room, unable to pay, and that costs get hoisted back on us.

Okay, Scooges of the world say what your black heart’s are feeling, “The world doesn’t owe Joe a living!” Maybe in the Scrooge-vein, we should say that Joe should be thinking about reducing the surplus population?

No, in the cold harsh reality of the world, Joe isn’t owed a living wage, but please don’t use less than clever diversion tactics to say that Joe can go out and buy a new computer, DVD player, and cell phone when he can barely put food on the table, a roof over his families head, and provide for proper health care. It’s intellectually dishonest and doesn’t address the question of providing a worker a living wage for days work.