Is Raising the Minimum Wage a Good Idea?

There is a tale told by children, mostly to shock each other, about a sailor in a city. It goes something like this: One day, a sailor is walking down the street and sees a sign in the store advertising albatross meat for sale. Pushing the other customers aside, he rushes in and seizes a piece, quickly eats it, then rushes back into the street, falling to his knees crying and thanking God.

The shopkeeper, understandably puzzled, follows the sailor. Once the sailor is calm, the shopkeeper asks why he stole and ate the albatross meat and why it caused him to thank God in such a fervent manner.

The sailor replies. "Sir, if you had been with me six months ago you would understand and forgive my theft. As it is, I will tell you the story and if you find my actions understandable, you will allow me to pay you for this small piece of meat that has set me free."

He tells the shopkeeper that his entire ship wrecked at sea and for weeks, the survivors floated aimlessly in dory they had escaped in, with nothing but a box of biscuits to eat, the rain that fell for drink and a small scrap of canvas to catch the wind.

The biscuits ran out and slowly they began to starve to death. Finally, the first mate died. The captain said, "Men, I am sure if we hold out a bit longer we will be near land and rescue, but most will not make it unless we find something to eat. We must consider our options." The crew knew he was suggesting they eat the body of the first mate. Angry, they turned their back on him. Day past into night and they grew more hungry and desperate and began to argue among themselves about the merits of giving in to cannibalism for their survival. While they argued, as chance would have it, an albatross flying over fell into the boat dead. At first, they rejoiced for here was meat that was easy to eat, and then joy fell to sorrow as they realized there was not enough to fill even one belly if they all had equal shares.

The Captain, cautious in his word, suggested that they knew now hunger and pain, but they should also know that hope was near. He suggested that he take the albatross behind the sail with the body of the first mate and cut them both into servings. Then he would mix the meat and they would all have a full share, none the wiser if they had eaten of the bird or the man they had known so well.

They did, and the next day, weak but alive, they were rescued by a passing ship.

"Until today," the sailor told the shopkeeper, "I have never known what meat I was given and today, thank god, I know I survived because it was albatross I ate and not a man."

When we imagine improving the life of the working poor we think in simple, immediate terms. If someone working for a minimum wage cannot afford to live on it, then we can legislate the business that employs him or her to raise the wage to a living standard.

A simple solution until you begin to examine the impact of such legislation. A new dilemma is created to replace the one of all working poor being employed at sub-living wages, now we have a percentage of the working poor working at a living wage and a percentage not working at all because their jobs were dissolved in order to balance the cost of the wage increase for the others.

So, shall we eat the body of our fellow to survive?

Or shall we wait for a stroke of fate to give us the option of making a decision for our own survival without the total responsibility for the impact of that decision?

The sailors in the story choose the latter, and were "rewarded" with the albatross falling from the sky and therefore the possibility of not being responsible for cannibalizing the first mate. As long as they had no way of telling the meat apart, how could they be to blame?

However, the gift of the albatross served only to delude the sailors from the fact that all bore the responsibility for the decision to eat their fellow man.

Such is the dilemma of the living wage.

Without complete and complex legislation to change the possibilities available to members of the working poor, without a complete and total change to our society and how we think of potential - a simple wage change merely deludes us all. Those who keep their jobs at the new wage have eaten albatross, those who lose their jobs have been cannibalized. By whom?  By all of us who voted for the raise in minimum wage.

If we do not vote for the raise, however, we are condemning an enormous section of our population to "death" with no guarantee that there is a ship around the corner to rescue them just in time.

The problem is not in the amount of money legislated as a wage but in the fact that we live in a society in which we must legislate business so as not to take gross advantage of the very persons who allow them to produce. It lies in our perception that for some, success and achievement is not possible so the best we may "allow" them is the bare minimum to survive.

Business and society do not have an obligation to destroy themselves in order to ensure that all have a middle class life. They do have an obligation, especially business, to do everything in their power to ensure efficient production and growth.  The obligation of society is to guarantee the basic rights to all and to engender contribution.

By changing our definition of success we change what we will allow to be done in the process of achieving it. Success is viewed in the short term and once momentarily achieved, success is stripped of all elements of risk and rendered impotent and lifeless. A "successful" business tries to repeat its success, rather than use it as a stepping-stone for greater invention. A "successful" business makes it profit through gross inflation of the price with which it sells the item.

Society narrowly defines success and value and does not allow for the true variation of achievement possible from their population. The class system, particularly in the USA, is strictly defined and yet operates under the delusion that it does not exist at all. There is a perception of vertical mobility but it is limited in the areas open to different classes to achieve. What started as a country in which every child had the potential to rise and become president, has become a country where that is reserved for the few who have a set selection of opportunities. It is telling what society thinks of their class and race minorities that almost all opportunities for advancement for them lie in the areas of "entertainment".

By raising the minimum wage we do not, "save the many and sacrifice the some" if the underlying structures of education and the current of thought are also raised in their expectations of what is possible for people to achieve. To raise our expectations we must also address the deficiencies in our support systems and cultures to enable more people to realize their potential.  Raising the minimum wage is only the beginning of effectively providing opportunity to all, the tip of the iceberg for what is needed to change our perceptions of success and to allow for growth and opportunity for all.