Getting Real About a Living Wage

I saw a friend on Facebook with a long post on how much the people who work in grocery stores, deliver things, clean hospitals, did during the pandemic and how because they helped keep things going, it was really important to ensure these workers get a living wage.

And while I could absolutely see the reason he was making the appeal that way, I have to say that I disagree with a fundamental premise of it. Those people don’t deserve a living wage because they kept society running during a pandemic. They deserve a living wage because they are human beings who are working. That’s it. They could be photocopying at Kinkos (yes, I’m old; this may not even be a job anymore) or manufacturing Tiki Torches. They could be working full-time or part-time; it doesn’t matter. The wage we pay human beings should be one that allows them to pay for food, shelter, and save a little, if that job is worked 40 hours a week.

Because we are all humans, we all need the basic necessities, and if a person is working, their salary should be able to accord them this.

People who complain about raising the minimum wage to a living rate often use the argument that these are jobs intended for high schoolers. Are high schoolers somehow subhuman? Do they suddenly not deserve the same rights as other employed people? If someone said, well, those people are middle-aged, they shouldn’t get paid the same, would that fly? Would that be acceptable? If somehow you being in the group the policy is being applied to makes it sound unfair, then it’s probably not a good policy. Teenagers who have jobs are often working because they need to. They need to save for college. They need to help support their family. They need to gain experience at earning a living and managing their money. That does not mean they should be paid unfair wages.

And of course, what about the non-high school person who takes that job? Should they be paid differently because they’re not just a kid? And how would that work in terms of discrimination laws?

The other argument people have is that these jobs get paid less because the person didn’t go to college or obtain the right credentials to earn higher pay. Again, this is a social construct that elevates one group of people artificially, while dehumanizing the other. “If you don’t do what X-group says, you don’t deserve enough wages to survive. You should die.” That’s the general theory behind that argument. Didn’t go to college–you deserve subhuman wages. One could flip the argument, and say, people who went to college or earned graduate degrees spent years wasting time and instead should have been out helping society by doing jobs that keep it running, and therefore they should be paid less. They’re lazy people who just want to sit around thinking and not doing. The same people who make the argument that lack of education is why people deserve such subpar wages would be aghast if someone made the previous argument related to why they deserved subpar wages.

We need to stop othering people, and view them as someone who is like us, and treat them the way that we would want to be treated. If we took a job that wasn’t something that was perfect, we would want to be able to afford to live. We would want a living wage. We should want that for everyone because we view that as human beings, who are like us.

When we other people, and view them as subhuman and not like us, we make excuses to do horrible things to them, like pay them less than a living wage. A wage we ourselves would never want to work for or think we deserved.

I do hope more states pass living wage laws, and that Congress can get an inflation-adjusted federal minimum wage. People are all deserving of the basics. And while I know there are a lot of inequities and problems out there, a living wage shouldn’t be one of them.

I will leave you with the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who said it best:

 It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By “business” I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, June 16, 1933