The right to employment flows from a biblical understanding of justice -- An E-interview with Sheila Collins about the right to work: The Conclusion

Dr. Sheila Collins, a political scientist who formerly served with the Women's Division of the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church, is a co-founder of the National Jobs for All Coalition.  In Part One of this e-interview she discussed the practicality of the idea found in the United Methodist Social Principles that "every person has a right to a job at a living wage." (See para. 163 . IV "The Economic Community" . C)  In Part Two she discussed what is preventing the United States from achieving full employment and what churches can do to advance this goal.

In the conclusion to this e-interview, Untied Methodist asked about the theological basis of the right to employment and the sources of Dr. Collin's commitment to this vision.

On what do you base your assertion that work and a livable wage are a human right? Is there a theological basis for the right to work?

To answer this question I would like to quote Amartya Sen, the Nobel Laureate economist who has done the most to study global poverty and inequality, and Dr. Martin Luther King who at the end of his life was eloquent about the effects of unemployment. 

There is plenty of evidence that unemployment has many far-reaching effects other than loss of income, including psychological harm, loss of work motivation, skill and self-confidence, increase in ailments and morbidity (and even mortality rates), disruption of family relations and social life, hardening of social exclusion and accentuation of racial tensions and gender asymmetries.

--Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), pp.94-95. 

In our society it is murder, psychologically, to deprive a man [sic] of a job or an income.  You are in substance saying to that man that he has no right to exist.  You are in a real way depriving him of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, denying in his case the very creed of his society.

--Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), p. 55. 

Since employment at living wages is so central to the ability to live a healthy and dignified life in community with others, there is every reason to consider it a human right.  In his 1944 State of the Union message, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed a new Bill of Rights for the Nation.  If it had passed it would have defined work at living wages ("the right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation"), along with affordable and safe housing, adequate health care and education as basic human rights which the government was bound to guarantee.  These are the words with which FDR introduced his “Economic Bill of Rights": 

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights--among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.  They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our Nation has grown in size and statue, however--as our industrial economy expanded--these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.  "Necessitous men are not freemen."  People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

The international community, at least in principle if not always in practice, has recognized that work at living wages is essential to human life and social development and that to deprive human beings of work is to deprive them of a basic human right.  This right is enshrined in several international treaties and covenants, such as the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 23) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Articles 6-8). 

Despite this widespread recognition that decent employment and economic security are human rights, the U.S. Constitution makes no mention of such rights and there is no public recognition of this basic flaw in our system. Some of those who have studied the employment situation in the United States have recommended adding a constitutional amendment to the right to employment at living wages, but, sadly, there has been no widespread groundswell for such a proposal.  For further analysis of this idea, see: William P. Quigley, Ending Poverty as We Know It: Guaranteeing a Right to a Job at a Living Wage (Temple University Press, 2003). 

As for a theological basis for the right to work at living wages, the characterization of work in the Book of Genesis as punishment for original sin is not an encouraging start.  However, the overwhelming message of the prophets and of Jesus is one of justice for the poor and the oppressed. As the Catholic Bishops state in their Pastoral Letter, Economic Justice for All, employment as a basic right flows from this understanding of biblical justice. 

There are several passages in Scripture which can be interpreted as addressing the right to a job at a living wage, none better than Isaiah, speaking of the new Jerusalem as a time when “men shall build homes and inhabit them; plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build for others to inhabit nor plant for others to eat...my chosen shall enjoy the fruit of their labor." (Isaiah 65:21-22.9) Again Acts 4:32, in describing the early Christian community, relates that the believers held everything in common, that all shared their possessions and they were distributed as any had need. This passage has been a key organizing text for Christians for socialism. While it does not speak directly to the right to a job, it implies that those who have work have an obligation to share equally with those who do not. 

Walter Wink has interpreted Jesus’ parable of the laborers in the vineyard as a statement about the right to work for a living wage in Jesus’ vision of the reign of God. (Matthew 20) Though workers began at different times of the day, all received the same pay – a fair wage for a day’s work. Wink says that in our society, which claims that all persons are created equal, in fact they end up very unequal because of the market system. In Jesus’ vision, all begin unequal but at the end of the day, all are equal – a very strong argument for a living wage for all who want to work. 

Obviously you have made this concern a major focus of your own work as a professor and activist. Why?

It probably goes back to my growing up in a family in which economic insecurity was the leit motif.  My parents were both self-employed artists and never had steady incomes.  My father, who had grown up poor, lived every day under the threat of not being able to support his family and died of a heart attack at an early age largely, I believe, because of the stress of living with the daily threat of indigence.

As a young married woman, I lived for 10 years in East Harlem, New York, where poverty and unemployment were palpable.  I saw many good hardworking people struggle to support families on poverty-level wages, never able to escape the ghetto nor the prison-like brick public housing units that dot so many inner-city neighborhoods.  I also saw what unemployment and underemployment do to people in the wasted lives of drug addicts and alcoholics, prostitutes and pimps, numbers runners and hustlers, and in the squalor of their physical surroundings.  Living in a low income ghetto affected my spirit and made me more passionate about economic injustice.

Is there anything else you’d like us to know about full employment? 

Members of the National Jobs Coalition believe in the dignity of work and in a nation where everyone who wants to work can find a decent-paying job. We recognize, however, that there is also a problem of overwork and too little leisure and recreational time for many Americans.  We work for a society where work per se is not the end, but the means to a fulfilling life. 

Although the need for certain government benefits would be reduced if we were to achieve jobs for all, some public income support would still be needed, especially for the most vulnerable sectors of our population.  Full employment would be real welfare reform. In the meantime, we must strengthen our safety net.  Thus, we have not only worked for policies that would produce more jobs and raise wages, but we have also advocated for increasing government support for child and elder care (currently only about 15 percent of families eligible for public child care actually receive it), affordable preventive health care and other supportive services for working people, improving unemployment insurance, and saving Social Security as a social insurance program.

Our thanks to Dr. Collins for this compelling vision of jobs for all consistent with our United Methodist Social Principles.

Comments

[Revwilly]

When one takes an agenda to the scriptures you can find anything you want in them. I can make a case for handling snakes in worship.

If one has low self-esteem because one does not have a job, then that person needs to change their concept of what it means to be human. I do not get my value from what I do(work) I get my value from the fact I have been created in the image of God and am loved by God just as I am.

[Tom Harrison]

the U.S. Constitution makes no mention of such rights and there is no public recognition of this basic flaw in our system.

It's not a bug; it's a feature. The ninth amendment says that "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

We don't have rights because the government grants them to us; We are endowed with them by our creator. The government has powers because we grant those powers to the government.

Some of those who have studied the employment situation in the United States have recommended adding a constitutional amendment to the right to employment at living wages, but, sadly, there has been no widespread groundswell for such a proposal.

A government powerful enough to mandate employment for everyone would be far too powerful. Such an amendment, giving up liberty for money, would be a bad trade bargain.

[Craig Moore]

Say Dean, hasn't this been tried before? Check out the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Oh, it didn't work! Well go take a look at Cuba, they have "full employment" and the right to work ensured by the central government.

[Dean Snyder]

Craig

You are right to remind us we need to learn from history, and that every ideal can be abused or distorted. This does not convince me, however, that full employment is not a worthy goal. By your logic, we should have never passed social security or anti-trust laws. Not so?
Dean

[Revwilly]

Dean,
What is it then, full employment or the right to work? I would have no problem with everyone working. I just do not think it is a right.

[Dean Snyder]

Willy
The UM Social Principles say that everyone has a right to a job at a living wage. I'll stand with the Social Principles. I think it is a right. We are made to breath, so we have a right to air. We are made equal so we have a right to vote. We are made to think so we have a right to free speech. We are made to work so we have a right to a job.

The right to a job mandates full employment.
Dean

[Craig Moore]

Dean, your dream of full employment and the right to work sounds so good. I think that you should give up your church and start a business. I wonder how you would feel when your government mandated that you hire whoever they send you regardless of work ethic, character, past job history, criminal record, unproductiveness etc. Maybe thinking about it would be easier than having to do it. Do you not understand that economies that are government run do not succeed! It did not work in the USSR, Cuba and is not working in Europe. Maybe you should think about the "right to an opportunity to work." Then if someone was given a job they would have to produce and be responsible or get fired. That is how the real world works.

[Rev. Donald Sensing]

The only way to have full employment at a "living wage" is to have a totally controlled economy. But the inherent and fatal fallacies of a controlled economy should be very obvious. If not, then read this.

BTW, the present unemployment rate is 5 percent. Countless economists will argue that a rate like that should actually be considered full employment.

Please define, therefore, with legal exactitude, not religious platitudes:

"full employment"

"living wage"

"adequate food"

"adequate clothing"

"adequate recreation"

As for the last, one of FDR's enumerated rights, are we now to consider having fun a basic human right? Really?

And what if I don't approve of your recreation? My recreation is shooting - is that a Bible-mandated right?

What if I don't approve of your choice of clothing? Or diet? Is eating at McDonalds literally a God-given right or not?

So who decides what is or isn't "adequate?" Do I get to decide for myself, for me, or must I bow to the "superior" wisdom of another? If so, whom? Clergy? God help us...

[Dean Snyder]

Hey Craig

You are right that no one should be forced to hire someone not qualified or competent to do the work (although it is right to not allow discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion or age, don't you think?).

But you have some interesting assumptions about the world of church, as though we in church don't have to deal with personnel issues or worry about paying the bills. Very interesting.

I've headed up a social service project with a multi-million dollar budget, and churches with staffs of dozens. Personnel is hard work and many difficult decisions have to be made. Dealing with problems by being quick to blame the problem on "bad" employees is usually, in my experience, the reflex of poor management. I've found that most people want to do their jobs and to make a contribution. Not all, but most.

I am looking for where Sheila said the government should require companies to hire anyone send to them. Could you direct me to the part of the interview where she says this?

Our United Methodist Social Principles say that everyone has the right to a job at a living wage, and if the private sector can not accomplish this, government should ... presumably by employing people for public service. I am curious where anyone on my blog has said that private employers should be forced to hire people the government sends them.

And, Craig, why the hostile attitude? I don't agree with everyone I interview on this site or with all the comments, but I appreciate the discussion and try to treat others respectfully. Or maybe I am misreading the tone of your comments. If so, I am sorry.
Dean

[Revwilly]

Constitutionally, where does it say the government should be in the business of creating jobs for people? I know, our Social Principles say so.:) If I could think of any thing the government does well I might be persuaded, but I can think of nothing. And if the government did create jobs for people I(and others) would end up paying their salaries. Why should my wealth be redistributed to them? I know, I'm stingy!

[Dean Snyder]

Donald

I do not see where Sheila said that the only way to have full employment at a living wage is through a totally controlled economy. I think this is not true, and I do not hear Sheila saying this. This looks to me like a straw man that you set up and then proceed to demolish. I don't think Sheila is saying this.

Surely you are not advocating an economy without any controls? No anti-trust? No restrictions against union busting? No regulation of financial reporting or requirements of accurate audits?

So, then, are some control okay but not others? Which ones? Controls, say, that protect investors? But maybe not controls that protect employees? Oops, now I am putting words into your mouth.

The book by the Gallup Poll people "First Break All the Rules" is very interesting. Gallup researchers discovered some people love to do menial work. They take great pride in it. They studied chanber maids in hotels, for example, and discovered chamber maids who love cleaning and take great pride in their work. The problem is that these people tend to get promoted to more prestigous, higher paying jobs. Gallup says, don't do this. Pay them really well for being excellent chamber maids.

Two more reactions: I am not sure why you are objecting to Sheila's terms and demanding legal exactitudes. We are envisioning possiblities here, not writing a contract. When policies are established we will have to sweat the specifics, but we can still have a meaningful discussion without specifying whether full is 98 percent or 100 percent or what exact dollar amount a living wage is.

Are you arguing that we should not aim for full employment because the term "full" is too vague. Are you arguing that we should not aim for a wage people can live on because we do not specify a dollar amount? Or that we cannot talk about adequate food without drawing up a specific menu? This seems to me like quibbling.

Donald, I do not agree with much of your blog but I appreciate it and enjoy it and gain from reading it. It sometimes uses generalizations too withour legal exactitude. It is still useful.

One more thing, God seems to feel strongly about recreation.

Thanks for your comment. I really do appreciate the engagement even if I push back.
Dean

[Tom Harrison]

I'm not sure it's entirely fair to limit this right to a living wage to employees. Shouldn't we be concerned about employers as well? After all, they must prosper in order to be able to pay anyone a living wage. Clearly what's needed is a "Right to have your small business prosper." Once this is mandated by the federal government and enforced by court order, there will be the profits necessary to hire workers at a living wage. If necessary the government can print money and distribute it to businesses so they can pay their taxes and hire their workers.

Okay, I was just kidding. I understand the point that the government should hire people for public works projects during periods of high unemployment. I don't even entirely disagree, subject to details of implementation. But I thought I should do some homework. I found this under Rural Life:

We support the right of persons and families to live and prosper as farmers, farm workers, merchants, professionals, and others outside of the cities and metropolitan centers.

So I have a right to prosper as a merchant in the small town where I live. Who knew?

"But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money would buy..."

[Dean Snyder]

Dear Sanctimonious

Welcome. Honored to have you here.

Money is funny. My salary at my first appointment was $16,500 a year and a parsonage. I assumed I had made a vocational choice that would leavce me poor the rest of my life. Regularly, I stop to be amazed that on a Methodist pastor's salary I got my kids through college. I've traveled to Africa repeatedly. Amazing.

I have a member of my congregation (maybe more than one, but one I know of) who earns less than $18,000 a year today (in Washington, D.C.!!! She volunteers with our ministry to the homeless.

God, I really do wish everyone who wants to work could, and would earn a decent salary. Grace is always incarnated, maybe even incarnated in a salary so your kids can eat or go to college.

Those folk who are looking for work at minimum wage every day, and who would accept less, really manage to buy something with the little bit of money they have. They do. It is somebody else who has money and can find noting to buy.
Dean

[Craig Moore]

Dean....Sorry if I came across as scolding you for your "right to a job" interview. I need to be kinder and gentler I guess. I agree there was no outright mention of a government mandate for a company to hire anyone in your blog article, but when we talk about the right to a job and decent wage, where does it ultimately lead? If legislation was passed insuring a job and decent wage who would enforce it?

Now, if we are just theorizing and dreaming then I agree with you. In a perfect world where human beings were unselfish and inherently good everyone would share equally and gladly with one another. The philosophy "each could give according to his ability and receive according to his need" would be practical. But,again in the real world this does not work and resorts to government coercion.

I like you believe that Christ makes a difference in the lives of people and if the church would act in a generous, charitible and just manner it would be a fine example in the secular world. But, I would also hold that in a world full of imperfect people the "socialist paradise" is not possible.

[Donald Sensing]

Dean, thanks for the debate! I don't see why I need comment *only* about the "received text" of your excerpts of Sheila's piece. Her concepts inherently carry some baggage along with them. Perhaps she or you want to ignore the baggage, but you can't. It doesn't matter whether she explicitly said a controlled economy was inherent in her ideas because it isn't possible to guarantee everyone a job without coercion, and that necessarily means government control.

I beg to differ: legal exactitude is precisely what is at stake here because once you make something a Constitutional right, you bring the courts in.

But to try to be specific in response:

Surely you are not advocating an economy without any controls?

No, I am not saying this, but I think the economy is well over-regulated now.

Controls, say, that protect investors? But maybe not controls that protect employees?

Sorry, Dean, any controls that "protect investors" automatically protect employees. However, "protect" is not the apt term. Investment should encouraged, not "protected," because investment creates jobs. Any measures that are investment unfriendly are also employment unfriendly. Hand in glove, direct relationship.

... We are envisioning possiblities here, not writing a contract. When policies are established we will have to sweat the specifics, but we can still have a meaningful discussion without [specifics].

Without specifics I do not agree that the discussion is really meaningful at all.

Are you arguing that we should not aim for full employment because the term "full" is too vague.

Yes. It's those darn specifics again. There are always going to be a hard core of unemployed and unemployable. It's not a fixed figure, but I have yet to see any authority argue that it's significantly less than the 5% unemployed we have now. Shave a few tenths, perhaps, but that's about it.

Are you arguing that we should not aim for a wage people can live on because we do not specify a dollar amount? Or that we cannot talk about adequate food without drawing up a specific menu?

Again, yes, that is exactly what I am arguing, otherwise you're asking me to buy a pig in a poke. You are proposing national policy here, why are you shrinking from specifics? Would you be satisfied if the president sent a budget to the Hill that in lieu of a dollar figure for HHS merely said, "adequate." I'm guessing not.

Other thoughts: If we are to establish a right to be employed as a matter of national policy, then will someone have the right to turn down a job when offered? Will someone have the right not to work at all?

[Joel Thomas]

Maybe we could at least update the Social Principles to reflect Donald's view that killing people in war ought to be fun.

[Joel Thomas]

And Joe Carter, of Evangelical Outpost, has his suggestion for the Social Principles, even though he isn't United Methodist: "We hereby declare that it is every Christian's duty to despise the French."

[Dean Snyder]

Craig
My interview with Sheila was motivated by the UM Social Princples saying everyone has the right to a job at a living wage. I wanted to ask a United Methodist who has thought about employment a lot whether this idea is practical. I myself do not think we could implement this perfectly, but then I don't think there is much we could implement perfectly. Yet, Sheila's interview convinces me that we could do a lot better.

Sheila's recommendations seem to me to be very practical and not coercive. Her suggestions at http://www.untiedmethodist.com/untiedmethodist/2005/08/full_employment.html
are nothing like what you propose would happen. The one exception that probably is controlling is a minimum wage. I think a minimum wage is essential because everyone deserves at least a certain level of income if they are employed. I think this ought to vary in different places because the cost of living varies. And, yes, we will never fully agree on what a minimum wage ought to be, but it is better to negotiating this than to allow people to be victimized.

Clearly policies would have to have means to hold employees accountable. But what is repressive about saying that anyone who is willing to work will get a job even if goverment is tghe employer of last resort? At the very least this would pressure government to do the kinds of things Sheila suggests that would be enhancing of job stimulation.

I appreciate you relaxing a little in your tone. This doesn't mean I don't appreciate your tough thinking.
Dean

[Donald Sensing]

Joel Thomas is simply lying in commenting that I have the "view that killing people in war ought to be fun." I defy him or anyone else to find anything on my site that even hints at that.

[Donald Sensing]

Dean, I have no real issue with the idea "that anyone who is willing to work will get a job even if goverment is the employer of last resort." But I do have some questions/observations.

1. If the government is by law to be the employer of last resort, how is that different from the present system? Are not the various welfare programs existing today a form of employment in the sense that they provide a welfare recipient with what are basically wages and benefits, even if low and limited? What would your or Sheila's programs do differently in making the govt. a employer of last resort? (There are persons in my congregation on welfare; I do not pretend welfare is a "living wage," however defined.)

2. I agree that productive labor and regular employment is infinitely preferable to any kind of welfare. But, critically, a large number of welfare recipients do not agree. Many recipients are mentally or physically unable to maintain productive labor and regular employment, but many who are able simply are not willing. Under your plan will they be compelled to work and if they refuse shall their entitlement be withdrawn? There is, after all, biblical warrant for that: "Anyone unwilling to work should not eat" (2 Thes. 3:10).

My point is, basically, how do we prevent the employer of last resort becoming for some able persons their employer of first preference?

[Craig Moore]

Dean

I have no problem with everyone being given a chance to work and making a decent wage, who does not wish this? I guess the problem I have is giving government a role in oversight or administration of this type of policy. Historically this idea has not worked as it should because the people who make up "government" are no more perfect than the greedy capitalist that most liberals don't trust. I guess you have to chose who gets abused and oppressed in this imperfect system. When we start talking about giving someone a right, i.e. job, living wage, health care, housing; someone else has to pay for someone elses rights. If I chose to do that voluntarily, Praise God for my Christlike behavior. But if I am forced to do so by law and my wealth is confiscated to do so, then is that moral? Many say yes, so therefore my freedom of choice has been violated and my property seized or taxed and given to another. If a woman has a right to choose what she will do with her body, why do some not have a right to choose what to do with their wealth? Should I be mandated to be generous and my brother's keeper? As a Christian I believe that I personally should, but should others who do not share my moral values be forced to support them also?

You see, Dean, these issues have deep philosophical roots and address other issues in life and we must be consistent in applying them to many other issues that confront us.

Craig

[Dean Snyder]

Hey Joel

I have friends and relatives who have been in the military and who have seen combat. They were proud of their service but took no pleasure whatsoever in the cost of war for either side. Matter of fact, my military loved ones have suffered over the injury and death caused by war much more than I have. I see nothing in Donald's writings that warrants your remark. I suspect it came out in a way different than you would say it face to face. One of the bad consequences of this way of communicating, although one of its blessings is that I get to dialogue with folk representing ideas and ways of thinking I am just never exposed to otherwise.
Dean

[Neil]

When the UM principles say people have a right to living wages, does that mean we have to lobby the government to do that? (I would echo all the objections noted above on that count.) Or does it mean if you are a Methodist that you need to offer a living wage? The latter seems more logical to me.

The verses referenced in the post were so distorted it is so hard to take the rest of the message seriously. For example, the Acts verse about sharing possessions has nothing to do with socialism. These people gave possessions freely (ask the Soviets if they had a choice).

[Dean Snyder]

Sorry for being away from this post. I got tied up with the Junaluska thing.

Donald

You ask hard questions. I think there are people who are incapable of productivity for various physical and emotional issues. (Although some folk with physical and emotional "disabilities" are among the most able people I know.) Society has an obligation to care for those who are unable to care for themselves. I do not even think this requires Christian faith to be recognized. So welfare is necessary to care for those who cannot work. It makes sense to train those who can be trained for work. Most welfare recipients I have known have wanted to work.

What about those who don't want to work or choose such jobs of last resort as their first choice? Will such programs be abused? Sure. Probably not more than Americans --including corporate America-- abuse the income tax system, however. Throughout the years, I have known persons who came to work for the church who thought they did not have to be accountable because they were working for a church. Supervising such folk is hard work. Because something is hard doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do it. Because it will be abused by a small minority of folk doesn't mean we shouldn't bother. The perfect is the enemy of the good. We need to do the good even if it isn't perfect.

Craig

I don't think anybody should starve because they are required, as part of the social contract, to provide for basic opportunity for others. But what is wrong with a reasonable tax on our wealth to provide a living wage to everyone? Our wealth is not our body. Our bodies are God-given. We accrue our wealth from the society. In return, the society has a fair claim on a portion of our wealth to benefit the whole, including the elimination of poverty and all the costs to society it produces. Why should there be extremes of wealth and poverty in a society? These are both unhealthy and unfair.

Neil

Socialism can be voluntary. At a seminary here in D.C. the faculty voluntarily voted to equalize (or socialize) salaries.

On the other hand, there are many aspects of life within our nation that are not voluntary -- such as taxes, one-person-one-vote, anti-trust laws, social security, Medicare, etc. Are you in favor of doing away with any expectations of people other than what they want to do voluntarily? When does it become socialistic? I think all of the examples I listed above --inclusing one--person-one-vote represent socilastic-like commitments to equality within the society.

Now if you are talking about a non-democratic one-party state like the former Soviet Union, that is a different matter. A democractic system that rfecognizes the obligation of each to all within the society and that takes responsibility for the welfare of the society and that aims for the goal of maximizing opportunity and equality, that is something else.

Thanks to everyone for this discussion.
Dean

[James Stephenson]

Rev. Sensing was not saying that the good Doctor was calling for a controlled economy. He was saying the only way to attempt it, is to have a controlled economy.

Because the Government would have to give businesses something to stay in business. Otherwise companies would lose money to give everyone a living wage. In a free market society it is not possible to give everyone a living wage without government interference.

A business job is to make a profit. Those profits are sometimes razor thin, Grocery stores, Walmart, and place such as these make very little profit, percentage wise. Walmart makes about 5% profit and Grocery stores make less. To raise wages at the Grocery stores, they would have to raise prices. Suddenly the people at Walmart can not aford as much food as before. Walmart, would end up having to raise wages. As a result, they end up raising prices. As a result, the market evens out again, and people start crying for a living wage again.

The only way to stop that cycle is controlled economy. And controlled economies do not work.

The people who believe it can work without controls, believes that businesses actually pay taxes. By the way, consumers pay those taxes, because a business is in the business to make money not pay taxes. If you want to bring back factory jobs for this country, check out fairtax.org. Make the Us the largest tax shelter in the world.

[Dean Snyder]

Let me try this:

1. Everyone has the right to a job at a living wage
2. All rights have limitations (people even sometimes go to jail which severely limits their rights), although the weight of evidence is needed to justify the limitation of someone's rights. In other words the right to a job is not absolute the way other rights --speech, worship, the press, etc.-- are not absolute.
3. "Living wage" needs to be defined in every community based on the cost of housing, food, and other basic needs. The Bureau of Labor Staistics (www.bls.gov/0oes/2003) says a "self-sufficiency budget" for a family of 3 (one adult and two children) in Washington, DC, is $3,533 a month or $42,391 a year. Washington is an expensive place to live. Maybe a living wage should be defines as enpough income for a family of two or of four. Maybe minimum income should vary according to family size. We should debate this. I'd like to know what people think.
4. An adult who works 40 to 50 hours a week ought to earn enough a living wage.
5. It is government's responsibility to do everyhting possible to provide educational opportunities to qualify people for jobs at a living wage and to stimulate the economy to produce such jobs.
6. The government shall employ persons otherwise not able to find employment in ways useful to the common good. Reasonable expectations for performance shall be a condition of the right to a job. Persons failing to meet such reasonable expectations shall have the opportunity for rehabilitation.

Again, will such a system be abused? Yes. Will it be abused by the overwhelming majority of people? No.

Or should we not do anything at all because it will not be perfect?

Dean

[Craig Moore]

Dean

Nice try, I can see that you are a flexible guy and problem solver. I still disagree that everyone has a right to a job. I would prefer to give someone a "right to an opportunity to make a decent living," if I was in a rights granting position. Giving someone an opportunity to work and succeed places some responsibility on the person. Knowing that you have a job right and decent wage guarantee will not inspire productivity in the majority of workers. This is the failure of socialism and Marxism.

Can you imagine the call to fairness, Dean, if someone in DC or LA was guaranteed $45,000 per year as a livable wage and someone in Tallahassee, Fl only $39,000. I can see the lawyers and politicans lining up.

What should determine societies claim on the wealth that I earn? Should I be penalized for earning more and someone else rewarded with my wealth for earning less? Should we penalize productivity and reward a lack of productivity in the name of the common good. Dean have you ever read the book "Atlas Shrugged?"

[Joel Thomas]

Donald Sensing calls me a liar for my comment. I don't accept that label and suggest that he is being dishonest or has a bad memory for what that topic was.

However, on February 4, 2005, he ran a post called "It's Fun to Shoot Them." He knows very well what that post was about and that he was not at all objecting THEN to the interpretation that it was acceptable for it to be fun to kill the enemy.

It seems that Donald has removed the comments to the post, which would give the fullest understanding of Donald's views, but I was hardly alone in interpreting Sensing's post as approving of the officer's quote of "It's fun to shoot them." Perhaps he has the comments archived or can tell me otherwise where I can find them, because I think the course of the discussion was very telling.

I'm researching the links to see what I come up with. I do know that Rev. Richard Hall of Connexions was similarly outraged at the gist of what Rev. Sensing wrote.

I simply don't place great trust in certain aspects of Rev. Sensing's integrity.

In an earlier incident, Rev. Sensing claimed that lynchings were just as prevalent outside the South as in his part of the country. His claim was disproved, but to my knowledge, Rev. Sensing never backed away from his post that lynchings were prevalent outside the South.

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