My faith tradition professes that our worth is in our faces because our faces look like Godโs face. We are created in the Image of God, making each human face invaluable. Hiding opposition to fair wages behind arguments about shrinking bottom lines and increased overhead devalues the face. Why do people need to work for $7.25 an hour when CEO salaries are in the millions and stock earnings are in the billions? If we pay people a fair wage, everyone will still have enough money. The laborer will have enough and the employer will have enough, distributed more fairly between them. We donโt have to raise prices to raise wagesโthatโs a lie told by those who look at salaries from the top. If we look at salaries from the bottom, the view is very different. From down there we can see all the money going up the line with the people at the top getting most of it. Are the faces at the top more valuable than the faces at the bottom? Are the faces at the top created more in the image of God than the faces at the bottom? I donโt think so.
The message from the Hebrew scriptures and New Testament on the dignity of work is clear โ those who labor deserve to be treated with respect. As with most justice issues, the Biblical witness around economic oppression was radical at the time and crucial for today, driven by a call for fairness and equity. Scripture has plenty to say about economic oppression of the poor, fair wages, and systemic inequalities between the โhavesโ and the โhave nots.โ Beginning in the Pentateuch and continuing through the Prophets, there is a clear and consistent witness against such practices as poverty wages, wage theft, economic disparity, and the exploitation of those in need. Many texts offer protection for vulnerable populationsโoften described as โwidows and orphans,โ people with no legal standing in that patriarchal society.
From Jesus to Paul to James, the biblical witness is also very clear when it comes to respecting workers. Recent economic analyses of the Roman Empire, the birthplace of Christianity, show that an estimated 55 to 68 percent of the population lived at or below the subsistence level, with an additional one in four people just above the subsistence level.
The religious, cultural, and legal context of the day favored the rich and helped keep the non-elite in poverty. Exploitation and oppression were tolerated. So, when biblical writers from the prophets to the followers of Jesus decry wage theft and speak against oppression, they are challenging the status quo. They stand in sharp contrast to the wider culture around them that condones this behavior.
The call for justice today is the same call. Different situations create injustice, perhaps, but not the call. In the 1st century, it was primarily wealthy landowners exploiting laborers and seizing land from poorer landowners. In the 21st century itโs investment income creating wealth for the one-percent on the backs of the bottom twentieth-percent. The question for those of us who hear Godโs call for justice is, who will enact legislation to dismantle the systems of economic inequality that shackle our lives? Who will join the chorus of the prophets and Jesus and change the story?
For anyone in Wake County — Please join United for a Fair Economy, Wake County Social & Economic Vitality, and Capital Area Food Network on December 7th @ 6:30pm for part two of a critical conversation about raising wages in Wake County. Your voice matters! https://fb.me/e/4UHVDUGbY
What a powerful statement! Wish it could have wider circulation. You are doing a great job.
Thanks Carleton. I trust you and Emily are well. Thanksgiving blessings to you both.
Jennifer,
Are we walking the walk. Are the supporting congregations, judicatories, and the Council paying the recommended minimum wage? Our light shines best when we are transparent and pay our employees fairly. Let me confess that when I had leadership responsibilities for staff, we strived to pay well above minimum wage but were not always able to pay working wage with our available resources.
We are paying a living wage at the Council. I feel fairly certain that our 18 member denominations do so as well, though I haven’t checked with each of them specifically. I support of the campaign, Raise Up for $15, we have always started our employees at the level and then given them cost of living raises each year.
Good thoughts for us, Jennifer–in this time of oppressing essential workers for minimal pay and major exposure to the virus. May God help us change the economic inequitie3s in this county. Thanks for the sharing prophetic calling.
Sandy, I could not agree with you more. Underpaying workers is theft of both their present and their future. “No college degree” is historically one of the top excuses employers use to justify this. A fine opinion piece written for the NYT is titled “Disdain for the Less Educated is the Last Acceptable Prejudice”. Of course, I speak from years of personal experience with this particular form of discrimination. The disdain goes both ways back and forth between employer and employee – a lose/lose proposition. If we are to live up to the principals expounded by most faiths, we can not let this injustice go untended and unresolved
Jennifer,
Thank you for this post. It is pertinent and important and speaks to some of the most fundamental imbalances in our society. It prompted me to do a little statistical research. I found that the Top 1% own 30% of all wealth in the US. The bottom 50% own 1.9% of all wealth. White families own 85% of all wealth; black families own 4.1% of all wealth. The median household income for whites is $171k; the median household income for blacks is $17k. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/10/08/top-1-of-us-households-hold-15-times-more-wealth-than-bottom-50-combined/?sh=4b7cf4165179) This is staggering. I plan to share your article and these findings with me congregation as a post. Your article invites us to join as a chorus. Are there links or ways that you would recommend we join?
Without fact checking all your numbers, I have to say, they look about right. It is appalling. For resources, I suggest following the campaign, Raise Up for $15, also known nationally as Fight for $15. Furthermore, every year a bill is introduced at the N.C. General Assembly to raise the minimum wage. It never makes it out of committee. Your members could reach out to their elected representatives and express their desire for some movement on this front. I do believe it will take a chorus of business owners–large and small, workers, and concerned citizens. It passed in Florida, so it ought to be possible in N.C.