Living vs. Just Wage

Here's a must read analysis of the subject, (hat tip to The Ratzinger Fan Club):

One of the big issues for those who are big into Catholic Social Teaching, especially as regards to economics, is the "living wage". The idea is that it is unjust to hire someone and then pay them less than the amount of money it would take to support their family at a decent level of human dignity. I see what's being aimed at with the living wage idea, but I have a couple of issues with it. First of all, there's the question of what level of life a "living wage" is meant to support. It seems to me that most people who use the phrase generally mean a mainstream American middle class life, with a single income, a stay at home mom, and a number of kids. (This may seem pretty normal among Americans and to an extent Europeans discussing all this -- but it strikes me as important to recall that this level of existence would be considered fabulously wealthy at nearly any other time or place in history.)

There's another concept that often gets mixed up with the "living wage" which is the "just wage". A just wage is a wage that accurately reflects the value which the employee creates. So for instance, if an employee at a furniture workshop is single-handedly turning a $100 pile of lumber into a $800 dining room table -- one would imagine that his just wage would include a fairly decent portion of the $700 in gross profit that he helped create. If it takes him ten hours to make the table, but his employer is only paying him $5/hr, we probably have a problem here in regards to just wage.

Now, is the living wage the same as the family wage? And there is the question posed above as to what standard of living we are talking about. Remember that the non-working mother is a recent phenomenon-that is when there existed family economies, the mother contributed to the family income-just she did it at home instead of at the factory or office. "Leave it to Beaver" mom's only existed in recent history. So what standard are we discussing.

Read the whole thing.