Living Wage

One of the topics in the news here in the United States is the "living wage" -- the idea that there ought to be a mandated minimum wage that allows people to live off whatever that wage is. The U.S. has a minimum wage -- it's $5.75/hour, I think -- with a movement afoot to raise it to something in the neighborhood of $7.50/hour.

I certainly would never propose artifically supressing wages, but I'm also leery of the mandated higher minimum wage. First, it's unnecessary ... starting wages at McDonald's are already well above the minimum wage. Second, those jobs that truly pay the base minimum are typically those that requires the least skills. They are usually the kind of jobs that can be not done if push really came to shove. In other words, raise the minimum and employers will stop employing people to do those jobs. It ends up hurting the very people who it aims to protect -- those with no skills that are desperately in need of starting somewhere and building skills.

But I got to thinking about this more as I contemplated the individual response to this. A strong advocate of higher minimum wages has within their power some ability to alleviate the situation. When they're in a restaurant, rather than tipping the customary 15%, they could leave a $20 tip for a $6 meal. They could. I doubt any actually do.

And that raises the question -- why is that? What compells most to feel the "burden" of such things must fall on "everyone" or "someone else." Is it simply selfishness? Or is there something more at work here ... a kind of class resentment, perhaps? In other words, there are others who have more than me, so screw them and make them pay?