ROOTS & WINGS : Speaking good news to the poor
Posted on Monday, January 9, 2006
First words are important. Here’s how
Jesus started his first sermon to his
hometown congregation: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor." That same Spirit seems to have inspired the senior pastor at Little Rock’s First United Methodist Church, the Rev. Steve Copley, to propose a ballot initiative inviting the voters of Arkansas to increase our minimum wage by $1. That is indeed good news for the poor.
The current federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour. Congress hasn’t changed that in eight years. Minimum wage workers have seen their purchasing power fall 17 percent in those eight years, to its second-lowest point since 1955. I remember getting paid $1.60 an hour at my minimum wage job in 1968. Adjusted for inflation, that $1.60 would be worth $7.51 an hour in today’s dollars. In real dollars, today’s minimum wage workers are making almost 30 percent less than I did in 1968. That’s not good news for the poor.
Raising the minimum wage ought to be something that Biblical Christians can unite around regardless of denomination or theology. When Jesus pictured the last judgment in Matthew 25, his sole criteria was how we have treated "the least of these" — did we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and clothing to the naked? The apostle James says, "If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?" These New Testament words reinforce the tradition of prophets like Amos, Isaiah and Jeremiah and the obligations of the Torah to advocate on behalf of the poor.
Biblical voices tell us that it is immoral when people are working full-time and living in poverty. A full-time mom working at today’s minimum wage makes $10,712 a year, about one-third below the federal poverty level for a family of three. More realistic estimates of a "decent living" to meet basic needs of housing, food, child care, transportation and healthcare place her income two-thirds below what she needs. Right now, nearly half of Arkansas’ children live in families with incomes too low to meet their basic needs.
I like what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said: "No Business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level — I mean the wages of a decent living." And I agree with Wal-Mart C. E. O. Lee Scott who said, "The U.S. minimum wage of $5.15 an hour has not been raised in nearly a decade and we believe it is
out of date with the times." Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have acted on their own to increase the minimum wage in their states. It seems to have helped their economies. Studies of the impact on small businesses in states that have increased their minimum wages show they have more growth in business, growth in the number of small businesses, quicker employment growth, and payroll growth. That mirrors what happened in 1914 when Henry Ford shocked people by doubling wages in his factories and lowering the work day from nine to eight hours. "One of the finest cost-cutting moves we ever made." Why? It created a happier, more productive work force and also decreased absenteeism and turnover. One other thing. His employees could afford his cars. They became customers. Dollars in the hands of low-income families tend to turn-over more times in the economy than dollars in the hands of higher incomes. The Rev. Copley’s ballot proposal also adds one thing that would help prevent the situation we face right now where static minimum wage levels mean that workers fall further behind every year. His initiative would raise the wage to $6.15 and then apply an inflation calculator in subsequent years. That’s long-term good news for the poor. Who would this help? In Arkansas 12 percent of the labor force makes less than $6.15 an hour. That’s 127,000 workers. 80 percent are adults over 20. A majority work full-time; almost two-thirds are women.
As I write, the attorney general is ruling on the ballot title. After that, the Rev. Copley and the "Give Arkansas a Raise" Coalition can begin collecting signatures on petitions. This looks like something that ought to attract support from groups like the Arkansas Family Council and Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, as well as from individuals who endorse the Biblical values of justice and care for the poor. If you’d like to help Rev. Copley, you can contact him at scopley438@aol.com or (501) 626-9220.
Lowell Grisham is an Episcopal priest from Fayetteville.
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