Wise Christian Counsel for the Church of the Poor and for the Poor
Retired L.A. Cardinal Mahony is notorious for his dissidence, waffling, and abusive mismanagement. With shepherds like these, why is it so surprising to find they’re also raving liberals?
From the Cardinal’s blog:
The Los Angeles City Council has voted to increase the minimum wage in the City to $15 per hour by the year 2020. Thirty years ago when I first became Archbishop of Los Angeles, I would never have thought it necessary to take such an enormous leap in low-end worker salaries.
Not any more.
There are many reasons for the hike, but two of them are really important:
1. In past years, minimum wage jobs were also relatively short-term jobs. They were meant for young people working part-time or others just entering the job market. No one expected such jobs to be long-term and permanent work. These jobs were to get a foothold in the work field, and then to move on to better middle class jobs.
Translation: In the Reagan 80’s the country was full of promise and opportunity. In liberal Obamaland, McDonald’s is the only place to get a job, so pile on more statist oppression!
2. The number of next level, middle class, jobs across southern California have all but disappeared. Recall after the Second World War how our area became a great leader in aerospace and defense companies. Hundreds of thousands of people were employed in these good paying, middle class jobs over the years. But gradually, because of many factors, those companies and those jobs began to disappear.
The result? People desperate to provide for their families are increasingly stuck in low-paying jobs, most paying at or below minimum wage. This is particularly true for our immigrant brothers and sisters. There are no “better jobs” to move on to.
And it’s not just the wages. Minimum wage jobs almost never offer benefits such as health care, retirement plans, or other amenities from previous generations. Many companies limit the hours for such employees in order to avoid having to pay for medical insurance. Shifting schedules makes it difficult for such workers to get to other low-wage jobs, or to take some classes.
Another worrying result is the rapid expansion of low-income families, and increasing wealth of high-income families, and the narrowing group in the middle.
The real issue is not just about minimum wage jobs. Rather, our goal must be to look for ways to narrow this growing gap between people at the top and those at the bottom.
Well Cardinal that will work then, if by lowering the gap you mean creating more and more poor. The rich will keep getting richer but the middle class will certainly grow worse, and all those entry level McDonald’s employees won’t get high wages or benefits. When the McDouble costs seven bucks in L.A. they’ll all just get fired.
Thank you, my shepherd!
The gap is not only economic. In so many places across the country, it is also a racial divide. Studies show that the minority communities of our country consistently remain on the lower rung of the economic ladder. Both divides need our focused attention, and I hope that the 2016 Presidential candidates will engage our country in this discussion–and that they be required to lay out concrete plans to ease the divide and to provide greater economic opportunity for everyone.
Just a few areas might help move us in the right direction. Home ownership has always been a past measure of success for our families. We need to make home ownership more readily available to all of our people–through new qualification parameters, lower down payments, and other means that do not jeopardize either the families or the economy.
Free houses, risky mortgages, high debt and unrealistic payments, social engineering, bubbles, bailouts, and bankruptcies: the wages of fraud and state compulsion, and precursor to the Obama-era economy. What does any of this have to do with the Faith?
Most lower paying jobs offer no pension plan opportunities. Even if companies offered a very simple plan these families could begin acquiring some equity for the future.
Why is it these ‘lovers of the poor’ only know how to reach into someone else’s pockets and tell them what to do with their money, their business, and the people who they employ? That’s not charity. It’s tyranny.
If you don’t like the way McDonald’s employees live, teach them to have lots of children, get together with their friends and family, buy a farm or business, work and take care of each other like Christians. Give them churches so they can have the graces and the communities they need. What a crazy paleolithic pre-Vatican II idea.
Social Security could raise the cap on payroll taxes so that the more affluent can contribute their fair share into the plan which will benefit them.
Tax the rich!….and raise everyone else’s while you’re at it.
The City of Los Angeles plan will go a long way to help our poorer families. But all of the incorporated cities in Los Angeles County need to match this new increase in the minimum wage for it to have its full effect. If a company in Los Angeles City just moves a few miles to a small city with a lower minimum wage, then everyone loses.
The widening gap between those at the higher end of our economy and those at the lower end of our economy must return to its former, historic narrow range.
Cardinal Mahony, men like you have no idea how to make things that like happen.
