To further clarify my point with Rerum Novarum, I should say that even the Church Fathers, commenting on wages, say that the wage should support the wage-earner with no comment (that I can find) regarding the family (though that was probably understood). 

Also, not too long after Rerum was published, the Archbishop of Mechlin asked the Vatican if it would be wrong for an employer to pay a wage sufficient for the laborer but not his family.  The unofficial response,  through Cardinal Zigliara, is that such would not contradict justice, but that it might violate charity, or natural righteousness.

Michael
"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried"

"The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese." - GK Chesterton

Michael
"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried"

"The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese." - GK Chesterton

the idea of the principle of subsidiaray is nearly dead in Washington.

Still from a federal level it seems you could reasonable use two things.

1) the poorest area of the country.

2) a nation wide average.

I do know that several some states have laws that say that their minimum wage is +x% of the federal minimum wage at all times.

If you can do one I don't see why you can't do the other ( although it might be an interesting constitutional question. 

sorry for the bad data.  Sometimes I take things in without completely confirming my sources.  Too bad you can't trust college professors to at least use real numbers in their lecture, but I should know better.

"Other models may exist, but when you include "support for the family" as a wage requirement, I think you run into problems."

So true.  The government should not set wages.  It should be the market.

Who should support their family?  The parents of course.  And extended family if they run into trouble.

And what should be the point of paying someone?  - So they do work that helps the business stay profitable.  Exactly.

Business is business and should remain so.  But, that doesn't shut the door on discussion of just wages or how we can improve them.  And it does not make minimum wage rejection a closed case.

The fact is business does care about an employee's family today.  They allow for paid days of family grieving.  They have insurance options for more than just the employee.  They provide for take your kids to work days.  They provide rooms for breastfeeding mothers.  They allow schedules that enable parents to pick up their kids.  They have on sight day care.  They provide scholarships to employees children.  And much more ...

A good business supports an employee's family.  It is just good business.  They know a happy family, makes a happy employee.  And a happy employee works harder.  They know that if a good worker can better provide for their family at another job, they will lose good workers.

Of course not all businesses are equal in this approach.  A technical or financial business is more likely to provide more support and understanding for a worker's family, then a fast food corporation that pays closer to minimum wage.  And we all know why that is: it is easier to replace a fast food worker than it is to replace an engineer or an accountant.

Also, it is easy for us non-low-skilled workers to judge this reality because it does not affect us.  By the grace of God we were in a position, thanks to our parents and their parents' parents, to become educated and skilled.  (Sure we applied ourselves, but we sat on our parents' shoulders to at least some level).  While at the same time, also by the grace of God, a majority of today's low-skilled workers struggled, thanks to their parents and their parents' parents.

After all is said and done, I think businesses need a flat playing surface to survive.  The economy adjusts and conforms to the playing surface.  If low skilled jobs are held to a minimum wage, then the economy adjusts.  The minimum wage has not kept businesses down.  Businesses find a way to make money on the playing field.  Some will pay workers off the books in cash to avoid taxes.  Or they might get illegal aliens to work for a lower wage.  Or they ship the company's facility to another country where all wages or lower or where there are less strict environmental laws, etc ...  In other cases, businesses get someone in a lower wage market to do the work, instead of someone in their physical market.

So, I stand for the flat playing surface.  I do not think businesses, left to their own design, should be left to control the entire playing surface.  That is an extreme and I think extremes hurt people.  The flat playing surface should include a minimum wage unless there is a better way to ensure that people get a fair wage.  (Businesses act according to laws, societal pressures and opinions. Note Enron and other recent ceo court cases.)

If you'll have no minimum wage how do we manage all the people who do not have the same privileges as you and I?  Do we continue to leave them and their children without as many options so they remain under educated, under skilled and paid a wage that only a eunuch can live on?  Business will go on without it and remain profitable but we'll still have a society that has poor people that commit crimes, cause accidents ... 

I do not have an answer to these issues.  Is the only way to help poverty by the goodness of people who stop to help poor people (very few if any)?  I myself do not help others enough to alleviate poverty.  And surely there aren't enough people with time in our society to help everyone in poverty.  Or are there?  How can we as a society, as a Christian people, help those who have less without an organized approach?

GK - God is good!

You said: "Jesus said, “The laborer is worth his wage.” He didn’t say, “The laborer’s family is worth his wage.”"

Jesus was talking about accepting food and board as a means of payment for preaching the word of God.  If someone had a family and was preaching,  I do not think he would expect his family to not eat and lay out in the street.  I think we both might be contexting here.

I am suggesting that the earnest support for a federal minimum wage by the bishops is a distraction from not only the pastoral care that the church in America should provide, but from a better exploration of other means of satisfying “justice” in labor.

That is a fine opinion.  What should they do in order to better care for their flock in this respect?

I agree wholeheartedly that you and I can probably do more.

This is wonderfully true.  I take it as a personal challenge.  I must do more for those around me.  Thanks for emboldening me.

The bishop mentions soup kitchens but what else can/should the church be doing besides writing letters to get the federal government to act? Job training (with volunteers like you and me), educational programs to support people getting a GED (again with volunteers), allocating a part of a church or diocesan trust to provide scholarships, work with your bishop to get local governments to set a minimum wage for their areas…maybe.

If they even were able to rally us everyday Catholics to do one of these things, we'd be moving some where.  When was the last time either o us did any of these?

But I still contend that support of an increased federal minimum wage is the wrong way to see justice done.

Your contention is heard.  I do not agree because business is not self policing on its fair wages.  I think you need social opinion and reporting and awareness of an issue to make businesses change.  And the Bishops are doing just that, raising awareness.  They are not isolated on this issue though, as you know.  The media may make it seem so.  They also run soup kitchens and set up networks so parishes can help each other.

In a perfect world we would not need anything as stupid as a minimum wage, but the business world could use a few checks and balances.  Are we more educated/skilled people going to gripe about this?  Of course!  But, that is our nature.  No one is up to bat for us to get us more money.  Right?

GK - God is good!

They aren’t rallying because they aren’t trying something really courageous.

What is an example of something really courageous the Bishops could do to tackle this issue?

On point is whether a federal minimum wage satisfies “justice” and evinces “subsidarity”

If you have not been swayed thus far,  I do not see the benefit of moving forward.  There is no reason to try to convince someone of anything that does not directly impact him.  It is like trying to convince King Henry VIII that the Church is more important than a male heir.  St. Thomas More failed and I am not even in the same country as he.  If there are companies going under because they cannot pay people less than minimum wage, I hold the opinion that no one needs the product or the service.

 GK - God is good!

Here is an interesting and related question.

Say I'm a highly trained engineer, why is it an hour of my time is worth more then an hour of the building custodians time?

Without the building custodian i could not do my work so what is it that makes his time less valuable then mine?

how about people who work on the manufacturing floor.  Without them nothing could be sold.  Sure the engineer designed it but they only do that once.  The workers are the ones who actually provide the product.

why is it that on average they should be paid 1/2 to 1/4 of what the engineers make?

Exactly how does that seem fair to you?  

The issue of risk is an interesting one, but something i have not encountered in a corporate setting, I am a software engineer and have known quite a few electrical engineers, some civil engineers and mechanical engineers as well. You do see risk in the way you are thinking about it with consultants and architects , but they are usually self employed. So the issue of for instance building custodians, or floor workers who manufacture what you design does not come into play with them.

My personal expierence, having worked as both a blue collar ( before and during college) and a white collar worker is that white collar workers are 'privileged' beyond any real sense of reason or proportionality simply because their particular talents are in high demand. Some times blue collar workers assume a great deal more physical and personal risk as well as work quite a bit harder and for longer hours for significantly less benefit based entirely on the perception that they are easily replaceable because they do not have documented skill sets.

working back to the center of the topic.

Is it reasonable to establish a 'base line' income which 1 hour of work should always be worth, no matter what kind of work you are doing?

Christopher:

"The issue of risk is an interesting one, but something i have not encountered in a corporate setting, I am a software engineer and have known quite a few electrical engineers, some civil engineers and mechanical engineers as well. You do see risk in the way you are thinking about it with consultants and architects , but they are usually self employed. So the issue of for instance building custodians, or floor workers who manufacture what you design does not come into play with them." 

 Though you may not deal directly with risk your company does.  Whether management recognizes it or not will tell how long the company survives or thrives.  The owner(s) who put up the capital to begin the company took significant risk with his/their funds to start the business.  If there are outside investors, they assume some risk.  If the company is publicly traded, additional risk comes in there as well.  But, as I said, risk is only one of the factors for which one may receive more pay.

If you are in a corporate environment, I would venture to suggest that the custodians in your building are not employed by your company, but rather by a property management company.  They may even be contractors for the property manager.

"[W]hite collar workers are 'privileged' beyond any real sense of reason or proportionality simply because their particular talents are in high demand." [emphasis mine]

I would suggest that the high demand argues, for the most part, that their 'privilege' is proportional and reasonable.  I am not speaking to specific instances...like the CEO making 400x the floor worker (though there is room for argument there as well)...but in generality; if there is a job that "anyone" can do versus a job that only one can do, who should be paid more?  This is not to suggest that ther is no dignity in the job that "anyone" can do, because there is dignity in all work.  But "just price" dictates that the skilled worker may charge more for his services based on scarcity, need, or difficulty producing such a service.  Thus you as a software engineer may charge more than a custodian based on all three devices present in this doctrine.

While undeniably true that physical risk is one which the blue-collar worker has a greater likelihood to absorb, it is also true that they are allowed, by Church teaching, to form unions and bargain collectively.  Thus the longshoreman on the dock probably earns more than many on this forum. 

As to the baseline of a "unit of work"...this is something I'd like to see the bishops develop and present.  It seems more supportable from a justice standpoint than simply increasing the minimum wage.

Michael
"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried"

"The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese." - GK Chesterton

GK:

I can say with all honesty that I don't disagree with one iota of Laborem Exercens.  Reflecting on the 90th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, it is a beautiful "updating" of that work...bringing it forward to the advent of the 21st Century.

 I have to think that there is an answer address the needs of the laborer that is superior, albeit harder, than the minimum wage which, as I tired to develop above, seems contrary to justice.  The minimum wage is an expedient, in my view, which lacks the characteristics of a "labour system [that] can be right:" It seems to lack "conformity with the issue," "moral legitimacy" (for reasons outlined above), and doesn't "[overcome] the oppposition between labor and capital" (as to whether it is "intrinsically true" I have to consider it, but, in light of my concerns in this paragraph, seems it will fall on that count as well).

As I said, there are real problems that must be addressed with respect to any number of wage positions in the country.  The church should have a loud, clear voice in addressing these in light of her Social Doctrine and not be one voice among many clamoring for "more of the same, please."

Michael
"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried"

"The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese." - GK Chesterton

Two principles have been put forward that I'd like to see some kind of scriptural support for.

1) He who takes the greatest risk should receive  the greatest reward.

          a) is it a valid reason to 'assume risk' for the purpose of personal/selfish gain or should risk taking be primarily for the benefit of your fellow man with expectation of a return necessary to sustain ones efforts in helping others and caring for those you have authority over?

" let he who wishes to be greatest among you be the servant of all"

2) Where is it written that scarcity somehow determines the 'fair' price for a thing , be it laybor or items.

    Here in florida it is against the law to raise gas prices when everyone is trying to evacuate for a hurricane.  Certain the demmand has gone up and certainly people would pay 5 or 10 times the normal amount for fuel to get it.  Why and under what circumstances does 'getting as much as you can' for somthing become 'price gouging'.

Christopher:

"If you picked up a rock as you were walking along the road and a man came up to you and told you he would pay you a million dollars for your rock.  Would it be more just to take his million dollars or give him the rock if he needs it that badly?"

Let's do a little playing with this riddle.

If you own a house and a man came up to you and told you he would pay you a million dollars for it, would you accept it?

If you own a house and the rest of the houses in your neighborhood are selling for $400K, but a man comes up to you and says he needs yours but only has $200K (the price you paid five years ago) do you accept?

If you won a house in a contest and the rest of the houses in your neighborhood are selling for $400K, but a man comes up to you and says he needs yours but only has no money, do you sell it to him or give it to him? 

These all seem questions of Charity v. Justice.  Would you agree?

Michael
"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried"

"The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese." - GK Chesterton