Wages must affirm personhood. Not just productivity.
“Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day… tell you… that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Last summer, I had a discussion over the phone with a close friend about workers’ rights. At the time, I was hoping to gather different perspectives on the meaning and value of labor for a podcast I intended to produce. However, the conversation turned sour, and I gave up on the endeavor.
They became combative. They quizzed me and continued to redirect the conversation to one with personal attacks about my character and my financial situation.
I have been a student and a minimum wage worker for the past few years. I am fortunate to have scholarships to cover most of my university costs, but I work to cover my other costs. I come from a working-class family, and I am estranged from them, so I am on my own.
My friend, despite knowing this, pressed on. They played Dr. Phil, and I played the disgruntled guest who did not know what was best for himself. They accused me of being lazy. Why? Because I thought that as a worker, I deserved a sufficient wage.
Of course, my friend spoke from a place of greater privilege. They were employed by their parents and grew up in the middle class. I grew up on food stamps, and I was disowned.
Why did I need a living wage for just sitting down in front of a computer, they asked.
This was an unfair simplification of my job, but even if it were not, I could not help but wonder: did my friend want me to continue with food insecurity, housing insecurity, and no health coverage?
I felt hurt. My own friend suggested that my ability to live was less valuable because they did not see value in what they perceived to be my labor. There was little care for my personhood.
If I were simply spending my labor at another location away from home sitting down in front of a computer, that labor would be just as valid as any other. Any person giving their labor must be able to live with basic comforts which allow them to not only continue giving that labor but to provide them with greater autonomy over their lives. Life should not be centered around labor for anyone unless they choose to make it so. Otherwise, they are experiencing wage slavery.
As an atheist, I understand our lives to be limited. The moment we die is the end.
I want my life on this Earth to be meaningful. I want to contribute to society, to travel, to meet new people, to try new foods, to gain new hobbies, to learn new languages, to support small businesses, to get multiple degrees, and to read books — for fun and not only classes. I envision a world where everyone would have these opportunities regardless of their labor.
However, I also recognize that our world is run heavily by greed and exploitation. Wealthier people continually subjugate and belittle workers to justify unfair wages and working conditions. Workers and consumers even become complicit in this exploitation.
Some claim $15 per hour is too much to flip burgers while CEOs make millions in a year from multiple people flipping burgers on their behalf. Unfortunately, even some consumers make these claims, yet they simultaneously complain when the underpaid labor results in inferior services or products.
Fellow workers even blame minimum wage workers demanding livable wages for rising prices — as opposed to greedy corporations and capitalists. It seems the capitalist class successfully brainwashed and turned these workers against essential working-class issues. Perhaps, they aspire to join the exploitative elitist class.
I have no such aspirations. If my wealth were formed by the exploitation of others, I would be unable to live with myself.
Why hoard wealth solely for the sake of it? Just to brag about my lavish lifestyle and the wealth that I will never be able to spend while others live in squalor?
A thriving wage affirms the personhood and autonomy of workers. It does not allow the perceived productivity of workers to be used as a tool of oppression. It instead acknowledges the fundamental needs of people to have a wage that allows them to participate productively in society. It allows people to not be solely defined by their career aspirations.
I give what I can out of the little time and money I have. I donate to various causes, and locally, I help organize a community around secular values. I am, by no means, “lazy.” I simply strive to maintain a meaningful life outside of my labor.
