The moral argument against raising minimum wage

Gary L. Maydew, guest columnist

Like many people inside the comfortable, but ever shrinking middle class, my wife and I shop some at Wal-Mart. Convenience as well as low prices is a factor; the north store in Ames is only a short drive from our residence. And so I found myself on an early winter morning shopping for the usual basic items of food and medicines (winter brings an array of necessities).

Despite the cold, there was a short queue at the two registers staffed by clerks. Preparing to join the shortest line, I was instead directed to a self-check register. 'Credit or debit?” the staff member asked briskly as she started scanning my items. Everything scanned perfectly and I was soon headed out of the store, the two bags in hand.

A few years ago there was only one self-check register in this Wal-Mart; a few years before that there were no self-check registers. Like almost everything to do with high-tech, the state of the art has improved for self-check registers over the years. These technological advances have allowed not just Wal-Mart, but most any store wanting to decrease their labor costs to install self-check registers.

So where am I going with this? Well, the trend toward more capital spending specifically directed to automation has intensified, despite the fact that wages for retail employees have been stagnant since about 1980. Now imagine that all jurisdictions followed the state of Washington in raising the minimum wage to an eventual $15 per hour. The likely result: a further increase in capital spending aimed at replacing workers. The second result: more unemployment. We are in a world-based economy. The columnist and author Thomas Friedman provocatively titled this development as 'The Earth is flat.” Retail trade comprises one of the shrinking numbers of job fields that cannot be done by workers outside the U.S.

This leads to another result, the loss of human dignity, purpose, and motivation attendant to permanent unemployment. I would hardly be the first to postulate that humans need to work. The Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef helped to create a taxonomy of human needs. The taxonomy of course includes subsistence as a basic need. The psychologist Abraham Maslow in his 'Hierarchy of Needs” refers to physiological needs, such as water, food, shelter, and clothing as well as safety as being basic needs that must be satisfied before one can achieve self-esteem and what Maslow called self-actualization, the need to reach the realization of one's full potential.

Providing subsistence or physiological needs (a basic standard of living) can be provided by government through transfer payments (e.g., various forms of welfare; rent subsidies; and food stamps) as well as by work. However, other of the human needs that Max-Neef, et.al, and Maslow identified is better achieved through work.

' Participation - work provides opportunities to learn duties and responsibilities and to cooperate with others even while dissenting opinions are offered forth.

' Safety - Maslow said to feel safe we need structure, order, security, and predictability. A secure job in a good working environment helps a person's sense of safety.

' Identity - the workplace can enhance a sense of belonging and can create a healthy sense of self-esteem.

' Freedom - the workplace helps provide not just the economic freedom that comes from a regular paycheck, but potentially the freedom to take risks, to try other tasks and other jobs, often the freedom to advance.

As our country continues to become wealthier, perhaps we will be able to provide a basic standard of living to those unemployed workers who have been crowded out by technology. However, fulfilling the other basic human needs that works provide is problematic. As I have mentioned in several articles, there is a better choice than raising the minimum wage. Increase and enhance the earned income credit, thus providing an economic incentive to get a job. People need to work.

' Gary Maydew of Ames is a retired accounting professor at Iowa State University. Comments: glmaydew@hotmail.com