The minimum wage is shifting upward. Cities like Seattle are raising it. Employers like McDonald’s are raising it. Contractors for certain government jobs are raising it.
In the past few years, the number of middle class jobs with middle class salaries has decreased. Teenagers looking for part time or seasonal jobs now compete with adults for work that usually pays minimum wages.
Even as the computer revolution eliminates some middle class jobs, however, health care and retail trade employment is increasing, typically jobs that require more human interaction. But if salaries in these fields are raised to middle class levels, how often will profit-seeking employers seek to eliminate these jobs?
The economist Paul Krugman suggests that workers are not like commodities traded in a market that tends toward the cheapest price for them.
“… the market for labor isn’t like the markets for soybeans or pok bellies. Workers are people; relations between employers and employees are more complicated than simple supply and demand.”
He says, “. . . workers are not, in fact, commodities. A bushel of soybeans doesn’t care how much you paid for it; but decently paid workers tend to do a better job, not to mention being less likely to quit and require replacement . . .”
Treating workers as things, as parts of equations about supply and demand, may not only be against many religious teachings, it may also be bad for businesses.