Living Wage Debate: Support for Brennan's Critique - Essay Sample

Introduction

The living wage is the standard amount of money paid to the employees to enable them to meet their basic needs such as food, shelter, and clothing while offering them a better living standard. It is often higher than the standard minimum wage. Over the years, the proponents of living wage have argued that all workers should have a decent life, and hence the employers should pay the living wage. However, Brennan came out strongly to criticize the motion. In this case, the paper will support Brennan's claims and argue that employers should not be obligated to pay the living wages against a novel objection.

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The employers do not have a duty to pay the living wages because they are not responsible for providing a decent life to the employees. The government should be the ones responsible for providing them with better standards of living by reducing the rates of taxes, the cost of goods, and the manufacturing of products. According to Brennan, the amount dictated by the MIT Living Wages Project is very that the company cannot even afford to pay. There is no reason for the payment since the current wage paid to the employees at the moment is enough to sustain them since it is above the poverty level ruled out by the United Nations. Also, the United States has the highest paygrade in the world; hence no reason can justify the need to pay them a living wage. Additionally, product development is very high at the moment that it cannot allow employers to implement living wages. Thus, employers should pay the employees' wages only based on marginal productivity and not as dictated by the proponents. In this case, if an employee's production capacity per hour is $1/h per hour, the payment should be $1/hour and nothing more or less. However, the employer should willingly pay an additional amount as compensation and not an obligation.

Another reason for not paying is that, the companies are currently operating under deplorable economic conditions. Hence, majority of employers in the world can not afford to pay the employees any living wages. Implementation of living wages would result in an increase in the prices of products and living standards since the employer would pass the cost of production to the consumers. Also, due to higher costs, companies may decide to lay off some of the workers, thus limiting the new workforce especially those freshly graduated from the universities and colleges from getting a chance to get employed.

Consequently, employers may replace employees with robots and machines, which would turn out to be much cheaper than hiring people. A good example is food companies where the machines have are entirely replacing the human workforce . The impact would be terrible since the citizens would have nowhere to work. This will also affect the economy at large because the government will have fewer taxes to use in the development of the projects. Significantly, the high level of unemployment would escalate the crime rates in the country since it will be an option for the youth to survive.

Another argument is that when employers increase wages, it could likely lead to job gentrification, which leads to a higher level of unemployment, thus affecting the economic conditions of the country. The increase in wages would make more experienced and skilled people compete for jobs that are meant for the junior staffs, and since they are more experienced, the managers would prefer to hire them, thus denying the fresh graduates the employment positions. Another option that a company would have is to outsource the jobs from the employees in the countries with lower standards of minimum wages. It may do so by offering freelance jobs such as virtual assistance, data entry, web design, and other available positions on online platforms. This would tremendously affect the workforce in the country since all the posts would be filled by people from developing countries and thus escalating the levels of unemployment in the country.

Another argument is that the exploitation notion should not be used by the proponents and the government to coerce employers to pay living wages. The employer should pay the living wage only if the amount is equal to the marginal productivity. Notably, the lack of payment of living wages by the employer does not in any way justify that the employees are being exploited. A valid argument, according to Bernnie, is that the employees may be paid the right amount of living wages and be exploited at the same time, while on another case, an employer would take advantage of the market conditions of the employee to exploit the employee. A good illustration is when an employee is very productive to the extent of 1000/h, but the unavoidable circumstances make them move to the area where the offer is only $100/h.The situation, in this case, will force the employee to accept the offer, which is way above the living wage at the location. In this case, the employees are offered a higher living wage and also exploited since the employer took advantage of the desperate situation of the employees. Another example is when an unproductive employee has a productive margin of about $1 per hour, the employer, in this case, is supposed to pay him $1 based on his production margin. Still, as a good cause, the employer raises the payment to 5 dollars per hour. The two cases illustrate that it is possible for the companies to pay the employees lower wages without exploiting them in any way, and hence the argument by the proponents does not hold.

Another argument in support of Bernie's claims is that employers should not be the only party left with the burden of taking care of the living standards of the employees, as highlighted in the Kartian argument. The government, family, friends, and society at large should be responsible for increasing the living standards of the employees. The government should take care of all the unproductive workers unable to compete in the market by offering them credit and reducing their tax brackets to improve their living conditions. On the other hand, parents should supplement the income of their children if they notice that they are unproductive and hence not earning enough money meant to offer them a better living standard. Again, friends have the responsibility of taking care of their fellow friends through supplementation of income, thus offer them a good living standard. Another downside is that increasing the minimum payment will not offer to provide a chance for the employees to grow. This is because the offer will encourage the employees to go for the well-paying jobs without necessarily considering their experience. In raising the living standards of the employee, this will result in the country having a workforce that is not sustainable and efficient. The employees will not also have a chance of getting into good jobs in the future.

Another argument is that even if the employers pay the living wages to the employees, this does not guarantee a better living and reduction of poverty by the people. Other measures should be taken into consideration, such as offering money management training, debt management, saving plans to the employees to sensitive them more on how to properly use the money. The employees should also be provided with credit loans for the development plans. The government should offer lower the amount of taxes imposed on the employees leading to more savings for future projects. Hence, this argument depicts that the living wage cannot lower the poverty levels of the employees, as demonstrated by the other proponents.

Conclusion

In conclusion, employers should not be obligated to pay the living wages because if they do it will affect the economic conditions of the country. Implementation of the living wages would increase the production cost incurred by the companies, and since they cannot afford the costs, they will opt to lay off some employees resulting in an increase in the unemployment level. This would also lead to employment imbalance since some employees, since employees in those countries would earn more while the other bunch would have to look at the other employees in the companies offering lower pay. Notably, with the high rate of inflation and deplorable economic conditions, no company across the globe can afford to pay the living wage. The cost of production at the moment is high due to the increase in the tax levels and hence low-profit margin. The implementation of living wages will only lead to the collapse of businesses. Also, the standard set by the MIT Living Project proves to be very high as compared to the lowest amount of wages than being offered to the employees across the globe. Finally, the living wage is not an option for the people not to live beyond the poverty line; this is because compared to other countries, the United States offers a higher wage.

Reference

Brennan, J. (2019). Should Employers Pay a Living Wage. Journal of Business Ethics, 157(1), 15-26.