Remembering a More Generous Economy
Remembering a More Generous Economy
By Rick Burnette
I was a nosey little boy. Every Friday during the early 1970s, my mom would write a paycheck for the family business’s only employee, Ted*. And I would inspect the check each time that I walked it over to him. As I recall for that period, Ted made around $70 a week.
My dad opened his auto body repair shop behind our house in 1965. In 1969 he hired Ted, a 20-year old who had been married a couple of years and whose wife stayed at home to take care of their baby boy.
Ted’s upbringing was not easy as his dad was killed in a sawmill accident when he was a toddler. After Dad took Ted on as an unskilled worker, he began to learn the basics of repairing dents and preparing cars for paint jobs.
In 1970 the U.S. minimum wage was $1.60 per hour with a 40-hour wage, excluding social security and other deductions, calculated at $64. Ted’s pay was a little higher than the minimum wage. He also received medical insurance through my parents’ business.
Ted had very little church involvement. My dad, a deacon and Sunday School teacher, invited him to attend our church. Not long afterward, Ted made a profession of faith and was baptized in Cartoogechaye Creek along with me and several others.
Except for a brief period when Dad went to work as the body shop foreman at the Ford dealership, Ted worked in the family business up through the 1980s. He and his wife still reside in the house that they built almost 45 years ago after having raised three boys there and they remain involved in a local church.
Would Ted’s modest but significant economic accomplishments be possible today? Under the current economic and business climate, it doesn’t seem very likely. For one thing, the US minimum wage, currently $7.25, has not kept pace with the cost of living. According to a July 2014 New York
Times opinion piece by Bill Marsh, through the 1960s, minimum-wage worker earnings were about 50 percent of those of average American production workers. Since then the value of the minimum wage has eroded to the point that minimum-wage workers earn only 37 percent of what the average American wage earner takes home.
The Economic Policy Institute, which lobbies for the economic interests of low- to moderate income American families, has stated that had the minimum wage continued to be adjusted at the same rate as growth in wages for the typical American worker, it would have been $10.65 in 2013.
On a state-by state basis, some progress is being made. By early 2015, 21 states will have raised minimum wages higher than the U.S. minimum. According to the Washington Post (December 26, 2014), these raises will range from 12 cents in Florida to $1.25 in South Dakota. The state of Washington’s minimum wage will be the highest at $9.47 with Oregon’s next at $9.25. Vermont and Connecticut at $9.15. Massachusetts and Rhode Island at $9. Unfortunately, these state minimum wage changes will still be considerably lower than the needed $10.65.
In addition to an inadequate minimum wage, another factor inhibiting low income economic progress is the pervasiveness of businesses minimizing employee benefits by offering part-time employment. Another limitation is the wrongful classification of workers as independent contractors for whom businesses are not required to withhold or pay any taxes on payment for services.
Despite tactics and legal loopholes that secure corporations and businesses a bigger piece of the pie, Biblical expectation for generosity speaks to the contrary. Agricultural abundance
was commanded to be shared with foreigners, the fatherless and widows who might glean after the harvest (Deuteronomy 24:19-21). Stating the case for adequate ministerial compensation, the Apostle Paul references both the welfare of the ox and the worker (1 Timothy 5:18). James 5:4, warns oppressive employers: “Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who plowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.”
What has changed over the past half century? Are economic conditions now so dire that employers cannot possibly support a living wage for their employees or provide health benefits without sinking their businesses?
Or is part of the problem rooted in an unhealthy sense of entitlement among employers? Could it be that corporate officers, managers and business owners generally expect to live larger than before, resulting in less to share with those in their employ?
Today, in order to adequately compensate their workers, how many employers are choosing to live with a little less? Many of these would know that a willingness to share, whether corporately or individually, extends spiritual blessings as well as economic benefits.
Had Mom and Dad been close-fisted employers, its doubtful that their faith would have been legitimate or attractive to Ted. I think that they understood that spiritual and economic concerns are not exclusive.
Rick Burnette previously served as an agricultural missionary with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Thailand. He and his wife, Ellen, currently serve as Director of Agriculture at ECHO in North Ft. Myers, Florida.
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