A July 2015 article from a business news site highlights the centuries-old argument about the value of one’s job title and monetary compensation.
According to that article, American business owner Dan Price had announced in April 2015 that he was raising the minimum salary of his employees to $70,000 a year (by slashing his own million-dollar pay package) with the result that 25% of his employees would see their salaries double. Overnight, Mr. Price had become something of a folk hero.
Quite understandably, those 25% were very happy. Who wouldn’t be?
It turns out that a few were not.
Two of Mr. Price’s most valued employees quit because they thought it unfair to double the pay of some new hires while the longest-serving staff members got small or no raises.
In his defense, Mr. Price’s stated that he wanted to fight for the idea that if someone is intelligent, hard-working and does a good job, then they are entitled to a middle-class lifestyle.
So, which group is right? Those who think that they should be paid what they are worth based on their years of contribution and job complexity or those who believe that they should be paid enough to meet their monthly expenses and still have enough set aside to put into, say, their children’s college tuition savings or their own retirement?
In other words, should a specific “wage value” be placed on human contribution based on the type of work they do?
The real question is: Does it really matter?
Why can’t we all make a contribution to maintaining our society without the payment of a wage? Of course, this assumes that we don’t need a wage to address our monthly or long-term expenses because the idea of “expenses” would no longer apply in a cash-free world.
Furthermore, the removal of a wage concept would eliminate the segregation of society into lower, middle and upper classes because we wouldn’t categorize ourselves based on how much we earned at a job.
Something to think about.
