Daily Archives: 5 June 2014

Minimum Wage and Morality

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Seattle has passed an ordinance that will raise the minimum wage private businesses in the city must pay to $15/hr. The wage increase will take effect in stages over a few years, starting next April. I’ve written elsewhere (here, for instance, and here) on the economic utility of raising the minimum wage.

What about what a government-imposed minimum wage does to a worker’s morality? A Seattle home health worker earning $10.95/hr had this to say about her situation and Seattle’s minimum wage mandate, as summarized at the first link, and also quoted there:

[She] is looking forward to the way a higher wage will help her support her three children.

She said she and her three kids are living with her brother because she can’t afford an apartment of her own even though she works full time. “This will make changes to myself and also a lot of other people in my shoes.”

She says that like family taking care of family is a bad thing. But why shouldn’t family take care of family first, rather than strangers being forced to do so ahead of family? Plainly, this family does not need the outside help; they just find it…convenient.

Another Aspect of American Education

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The College Board, makers of the SAT college “readiness exam” that high schoolers across the country take and supporters of the Common Core standards that so many Americans and American school districts dislike on the merits, now wants to bring PRC “teachings” to our children’s classrooms—in 20 school districts across the US, so far.

The tool for this intrusion is the College Board’s partnership with Confucius Institutes, an agency under the control of the People’s Republic of China government and which will act as College Board’s “partner” in this venture.

The College Board carefully ignores that connection with the PRC government. The College Board also carefully ignores the fact that

Hanban—the Chinese state agency that supervises, funds, and provides staff to Confucius Institutes—may bully teachers or censor lessons within American classrooms.

The College Board also chooses to leave unmentioned the Confucius Institutes’ “seven taboos,” or unmentionables, little things like:

freedom of speech, universal values, judicial independence, and the mistakes of the Communist Party.

However, the President of the College Board, David Coleman, does say this, loudly, and often:

Hanban is just like the sun. It lights the path to develop Chinese teaching in the US. The College Board is the moon. I am so honored to reflect the light that we’ve gotten from Hanban.

Coleman says pretty much all there is to say on the matter, even if he doesn’t realize that.

It’s time our local communities take back control over their/our American education.