THE MINIMUM WAGE IS A PRO-LIFE ISSUE

Why is the minimum wage important?  What are the implications if a person is working full-time and the pay they receive still qualifies as poverty?  Some people would tell me that if I'm not receiving a living wage, it's my obligation to better myself.  Get more education, extra training, learn a specialized skill, so that I will be valuable enough in the marketplace to merit a living wage.

But what does that say about me?  If I simply present myself as an ordinary grunt with basic human abilities and competence, am I not good enough to earn enough money to live on?

As pro-lifers, we try to encourage our society to value human life. PeopleI should not have to "better" themselves to be "valuable" enough to survive.  If people are ready to work and contribute to the society, doing work that the society needs (Do we need the services provided by those food servers, meat packers, and day care workers?  Yes, we do!), then the work that those ordinary people do must be valued enough for them to be able to make a living.  If it's not, we will never have the culture of life that we are trying to create.

This is why the "consistent life ethic" bumper sticker on my car includes poverty and racism right along with war, abortion, euthanasia, etc., as violations of pro-life principles.  They all stem from the same idea: being selective about who is worthy of having a life and having human rights.

I don't need to have a special degree to be worthy of living.  My unadorned existence and humanity make me worthy.

Comments

[Joseph]

Cheers!