What's Fair?

The debate over raising the minimum wage brings out some strong opinions.

The rant (left, attributed to the Tea Party) made the rounds on Facebook with 149,633 liking it and 192,573 folks re-sharing it on their own timelines.  It got 9000 comments.  It's perhaps representative of one side of public opinion.

The reality is that the minimum wage has lost ground over the years just in purchasing power.  If measured against productivity, it's about half what it was in 1963.

The 1938  Fair Labor Standards Act banned oppressive child labor and set the minimum hourly wage at 25 cents, and the maximum workweek at 44 hours.¹  It was a beginning, addressing the economic enslavement and abuse of some for the benefit of others.

When I was a kid, minimum wage was what I expected starting out in the grocery store bagging groceries.  It was years later that I discovered it was there to protect adults in the workplace as well.

Today's job market is pretty tight, and progress can be slow.  Paying for college or recovering from a lost job, it isn't easy to fight your way up from entry level.  And the minimum wage we pay today is worth less than it was when times were easier, economically.

The growing gap between rich and poor illustrates the issue more broadly.  In an industry where productivity has quintupled along with profits, workers make less than a decade ago.  Same issue.

Minimum

Curious about the effect on job growth that changing the minimum wage might have?  

This is the primary argument against raising the minimum wage, that it would cause massive job losses.  It's a flawed argument.  All the credible studies say the impact on jobs would be virtually nil. 

The benefit to workers and their families, on the other hand, would be substantial.  Of course.

Curious why there are such strong objections in Congress?  Who would want to pay workers less per productive day as time passed?  Who indeed.

Employers pay less than half as much per unit of work compared to forty years ago at minimum wage.  (See the real minimum wage chart; adjusted for 2012 dollars) (To find out where the money went, see the 1979-2010 Wages by Wage Group graph at the top of the page.) 

In America, the lowest two quintiles of household income are the ones most affected by the minimum wage. It's not just high-school kids working in the grocery store, it's mostly moms and dads in unskilled and semi-skilled employment.


See the National Bureau of Economic Research for the actual impact of raising the minimum wage.  It encourages children to stay in school, among many other good things.  Fascinating. 

Comfort Zone

For the gregarious only.

'Comfort zone' is just another term for 'stuck in a rut'.  At least that's the way the extroverts among us feel.

If we want to avoid repeating the mundane, we'll want to step up, climb out ...

Want change?
Pick one!

If your routine is ... routine,  plan a breakout; not a vacation, but a rut buster.   Go bicycling in Denmark, volunteer in a soup kitchen, or in Africa, go climbing in Colorado, exploring in Wyoming, weekending in NY, or work in the garden; whatever adds a fresh perspective.

For a bizarre challenge, try talking to a teenager about whatever they want to talk about.  One fellow talked about his first prom for as long as I was willing to smile and laugh and commiserate.  Another complained at length about his pre-calc class and showed me the 'stupid homework' on his iPad. More commiserating.

My dental hygienist and I laughed long and hard, exchanging grand-baby stories while she had stuff in my mouth.
A colleague regaled me with horror stories about building a deck and how the dog fell through the unfinished hole.  More commiserating.
A friend in Kenya laughed and told how the rain was so bad, you couldn't see, and her first grader couldn't go to school today.
Another fellow and I exchanged texts about his college progress and expenses.
My wife is sewing tick guards in pant legs for our son-in-law; he's a conservationist and has to be careful about such things.  They did the design together, and he loves the result.

Chatting with the new cashier at the drugstore about whether the afternoon would be a mandatory bike-ride or just an optional; he's maybe 20 and a neat fellow and lives 5 minutes from St. Mary's lake.
Most folks are easily engaged, and it's a lot more fun than just mmmphing at each other and moving on.

OK, that's the extrovert's view.  What does an introvert do for fun?

JA1:2-4.

If we're smart, we'll be happy when we find ourselves in this or that difficulty. Our labor through such times strengthens and equips us for greater challenges and service.  True?

Happy hump day.

Climate Doesn't Change

In western Africa, a tropical climate at the equator
gives this island country reasonable rain
and subsistence agriculture.
What's next for them?

"It's just a liberal agenda; it's not real."  How many times have we heard that or the equivalent.

"A relentless campaign backed by the fossil fuel industry and its allies challenges whether climate change is real, and if so, whether human activity such as increased carbon emissions from power plants, factories and cars contributes to it."

Today's report updates what we've been following for the last several years.  Climate is changing worldwide.

The effects in each country will be important, and in some cases, it will require regional 'way of life' changes.

For the first time, climate change is referred to as a 'clear and present danger'.  Scientists categorize the response to climate change into two strategies -- minimizing the effects by reducing the cause, which is known as mitigation, and preparing for impacts already occurring or certain to occur, which is called adaptation.

Reforms and programs driven by government will follow, of course, but the opportunity to actually solve the problem is perhaps long past.  What we expect is that change will come, regional sustainability will change, and populations will be reshaped.

My granddaughter was born this year.  Among other things, she'll see a rise in ocean levels between one and four feet.  Among other things, that means coastal areas will change; some will disappear, even some islands.  Cities and towns and villages along the shore will be affected.  In the less developed areas with limited resources, the effects will be difficult to address.

The most difficult among the questions will be faced by my granddaughter's children.  We're just now beginning to face this century's forecast ...

Browse through the report; it's richly informative.

A measure

There's likely to be an appropriate measure of dignity required for life, and for public publishing, for that matter. 

Despite this likely reality, we've yet to discover what that 'appropriate' measure might be.

Until such time as we do, we'll have to make our way along with an occasional excess of humor and absent seriousness.

Perhaps it's for the best, all things considered.