IF YOU MAKE employees more expensive, the University will hire fewer of them and will restrict its hiring only to those whose skills levels merit the higher cost. A minimum compensation schedule is a two-way street: First, it specifies the minimum the University will pay any employee. Second, it eliminates from consideration any employee whose value to the University, in the eyes of the University, is less than that minimum.
Imagine that your skills and abilities would command $9 per hour in the market place. If everyone is forced to pay you at least $10 per hour, then you won't find a job. How does that improve your lot? If an individual wants to work for $9 per hour rather than not work at all, why prohibit that person from doing so? Why tie the hands of the University so that the weakest and least skilled citizens in our community are told that they need not apply -- their skill levels are no longer wanted at the University. How fair is that?
The argument that a minimum of$10.72 an hour would have no impact upon the pool of workers that the University draws from is one made only by those whose future prospects are far beyond these minimums. If $10.72 has no effect on employment, then why stop there? Why not settle on a minimum of$25 per hour or even$100 per hour? Why not? The argument is essentially the same, regardless of how high you raise the minimum. Raising the minimum will inevitably exclude more and more potential employees the higher you raise the minimum. Those in the workforce who are economically the weakest will suffer the most damage from these proposals.
To see this more clearly, imagine that Congress passes a law that, from now on, no college graduate can be employed for less than $100,000 per year. Would you favor a law like that? Who do you think would be hurt by a law like that? Would anyone really be helped by that kind of legislation? What's the difference between that and forcing the University to a$10.72 minimum per hour wage schedule?
A better solution that deals directly with the issues raised, without adversely affecting the interests of the least skilled amongst us, is for living wage proponents and their supporters to voluntarily pool their money and give it directly to the employees that make less than $10.72. Employees paid less than$10.72 could be offered child care services and educational and training assistance by student volunteers. In this way, those wanting to help can provide direct assistance without destroying the future job opportunities of countless numbers of lower skilled employees of the present and the future.
In the long run, there is simply no way for a person with $9 per hour skills to hang on to a$10.72 wage. One way or another, in time, these skill levels will disappear from the University and the people who desperately need these jobs will be told that they don't measure up. They will be quietly turned away and no one will care. Gone will be the advocates of the "living wage." They will be enjoying their comfortable jobs in some other locale, earning wages way beyond any minimum wage laws and a new crop of undergraduates will be studying and enjoying life at the University of Virginia. The enormous damage done by the imposition of the "living wage" will be largely unseen, but it will damage the prospects of many of our economically weakest citizens nonetheless -- quietly and severely.
True charity and caring involves digging into your own pocket and into your own time and helping people directly. Such an activity speaks more to idealism than proposing good-sounding campaigns, like the Living Wage Campaign, that undermine the interests and prospects of those in our midst who are economically the weakest among us.
Edwin T. Burton is a visiting professor in the Economics department.
Read More
PATEL: Personal development courses support students beyond the gradebook
By Heer Patel | 4 days agoThe University must rethink its approach to education beyond traditional major-specific requirements and mandate personal development courses.
EDITORIAL: Commercialization threatens U.Va.’s educational mission
By Editorial Board | 5 days agoAfter all, measuring the University’s worth in terms of accrued capital, operational efficiency and numerical rankings molds this space into just another cookie-cutter institution.
YOUNIS: Why every U.Va. student should say yes to English
By Ayat Younis | January 9, 2025Every student at the University, regardless of their primary field of study, can professionally and academically benefit from engaging with the English department.
