The last couple of weeks I've really enjoyed Gregg Easterbrook's "Tuesday Morning Quarterback" on ESPN.com. I rarely get through it as it must get close to 100,000 words, but skimming for some quality insight and evaluation on both the NLF and world events is worthy of my time. This week I found two interesting pieces by him on world events, the first in this post and the second in the next one. First, on raising the minimum wage, he writes:

Social Justice Goes Six-for-Six:

In the hoopla over last week's historic elections, it is important this detail not be missed: Six states held referenda on raising their minimum wage, and in all six the measures passed by big margins. Success margins ranged up to 76 percent yes in Missouri. The six-for-six success of higher minimum wage proposals tells us four things. First, Americans are a fundamentally generous people. The majority of voters who said yes to raising the minimum wage are above that wage themselves, and know higher minimums will result in higher prices for their goods and services. Second, concern with social justice is a rising trend among Christian voters. The 76 percent yes in Missouri is especially revealing because evangelical turnout was high in that state, owing to a referendum about embryonic stem cell research on the same ballot. Jesus taught that the first concern of social policy should be the needy, and in recent years, evangelical Christianity has been waking up to that teaching. (On that topic I recommend to readers the new book "Tempting Faith" by former George W. Bush aide David Kuo, an evangelical; also it's important that Rick Warren, America's most prominent Christian pastor, has recently been talking more about obligations to the needy than any other
topic.) Third, the referenda results are another indicator of how far out of touch the House and Senate were, since in 2006 the Republican leadership in both chambers worked to sabotage a higher federal minimum wage. Finally and most importantly, the vote tells us the federal minimum wage must go up.

To stop here, I am glad that people are talking of our duty, as Christians, to the needy. But to cite Scripture on this, we must discuss it in the context as our personal duty, not the government's duty, to poverty. The government has wasted millions, billions, probably trillions of dollars fighting it domestically and trillions more internationally to no avail (See John Stossel for more intellectual and humor-filled commentary). The government can't do it, it is limited. I'm all for people calling for more intervention to help the poor, but let's all do our part and not run to Uncle Sam to bail us out, or we'll be in this exact position, possibly even a worse one, in fifty years. He continues:

Today the federal minimum is just $5.15 an hour. Some states have higher minimums -- that's what the votes were about -- but others do not, and in all states local actual wages tend to shadow the federal minimum, rising when the federal number rises. It is shocking, and an indictment of Washington, that today's federal minimum wage is barely worth half the minimum of the 1960s. Expressed in today's dollars, the minimum wage would need to be $10.20 an hour to have the same value as the federal minimum of 1968. Through the 1960s, full-time work at the federal minimum wage kept a family of three above the poverty trend; today a family of three headed by a full-time minimum wage worker is [ http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/MinimumWageGraphs.pdf ]24 percent below the poverty line. Yes, teenagers from affluent families working summer jobs don't need $10 an hour -- a teen-wage exception to the minimum seems fine. But our social contract should ensure that any adult who works full time receives basic financial security, and a $10-an-hour federal minimum wage would achieve that end. A $10 federal minimum wage would increase the cost of pizza delivery. It would also increase social justice: and all Americans ought to vote for that.

Another thing I have to disagree with Easterbrook on, and I'll note and fully admit his brilliance goes far beyond anything I'll come close to in my lifetime, but he and many others in the Christian realm today are calling out for this so-called social justice. We want everyone to be equal. It's a great idea but more utopic that realistic. I've read Ehrenreich's "Nickeled and Dimed" and found it preposterous. Sure, we can double the minimum wage, but we'd better prepare to see prices skyrocket and jobs go overseas. Don't people realize that? I thought Sowell's "The Quest for Cosmic Justice" was the perfect reaction to this paradigm. We desire a sort of cosmic justice for this world but our social realm cannot produce that. As I stated above, we should help the poor, yes, but again, to think the government can do it through domestic (raising minimum wage) or international programs (Millenium Goals) is a dream. Great ideas, great vision, but simply not a reality.