In a speech at the White House yesterday, the President made a new push to get a minimum wage passed after the GOP blocked an attempt in the Senate to raise it to $10.10 an hour.
Jesus talked about the rich young ruler, who came to him to ask what more he needed to do to gain eternal life. Jesus told him to go and sell everything he had and give to the poor. The rich young man did not like the answer, but a moral obligation was established -- all of us have an obligation to work for a living. Those who have more than others have an obligation to give to those who are less fortunate. What Jesus said to the rich young ruler could just as easily apply to the 1% today. He thought up socialism over 1800 years before Karl Marx did.
Pope Francis has taken up the cause of the poor and the working class.
“To love God and neighbor is not something abstract, but profoundly concrete: it means seeing in every person and face of the Lord to be served, to serve him concretely. And you are, dear brothers and sisters, in the face of Jesus.” (Pope Francis, Address during Visit at the Homeless Shelter “Dona Di Maria,” 5/21/13)
“When we are generous in welcoming people and sharing something with them—some food, a place in our homes, our time—not only do we no longer remain poor: we are enriched. I am well aware that when someone needing food knocks at your door, you always find a way of sharing food; as the proverb says, one can always ‘add more water to the beans’! Is it possible to add more water to the beans?…Always?…And you do so with love, demonstrating that true riches consist not in materials things, but in the heart! (Pope Francis, Address during Visit to the Community at Varginha, 7/25/13)
“A way has to be found to enable everyone to benefit from the fruits of the earth, and not simply to close the gap between the affluent and those who must be satisfied with the crumbs falling from the table, but above all to satisfy the demands of justice, fairness and respect for every human being.” (Pope Francis, Address to the Food and Agricultural Organization, 6/20/13)
The president took up that cause once again in his speech today. Yet, as he noted, there are Republicans in the Senate who claim that we don't even need a minimum wage. This is directly contrary to both the teachings of Christianity as well as any other religious teaching or moral philosophy today. Even the health and wealth preachers talk about the obligation of the rich to give back to the poor.
It is a myth that unemployment would be higher if we were to give America a raise. How do we know? The UK already has a $10.67 minimum wage, one that is indexed to inflation. Yet their unemployment rate is similar to ours. That is because when people get more money, that gives them more spending power and they put it back into the economy. That means that corporations have to hire more people to make more goods. In fact, when the UK passed a minimum wage for the first time in 1997, the economy there took off.
This election is really about which side are you on. Are you on the side of the working people, or are you on the side of the rich and powerful? There is no middle ground here. If you sit out, then that means that the people with the most money, such as the Koch Brothers, will be able to spend millions of dollars so that they can run more negative ads, start more wars, create a massive police state to round up gays, immigrants, and women who have abortions, drive us into the debt trap, and force all of us to work 80 hours a week just to make ends meet.
The New Deal was a social contract between all aspects of society. The working class would find work and cooperate with the government's initiatives, the wealthy could keep their profits but would have an obligation to give back to the community and pay a living wage, and the government would provide a social safety net to provide for families in times of crisis. Henry Ford, for instance, understood that he had to pay his workers a living wage so that people could buy his cars. This is what brought us together as a country right when we needed it when we were attacked by the Japanese and Germany and Italy followed suit and declared war on us.
Now, this social contract is fraying. People who are out of work are having a hard time finding employment again. Some Republicans are willing to tear up the social contract altogether, as evidenced by their remarks calling for the end of the minimum wage. We would return to the cycles of boom and bust that characterized earlier eras of American history.
The $10.10 minimum wage is not high enough for a lot of places, but it is a start. In some places, workers need $20 an hour just to get by given that the cost of rent is astronomical. But in many cities and states, people are no longer waiting for the federal government to act. As the President has consistently stated, change comes from the bottom up, not the other way around. And in many cities, the drive to get the minimum wage hiked to $15 an hour is underway.