What to do with a wage increase

Would you forgo all or part of a wage increase to top up the wages of the lowest paid workers?

If a system existed, where it would go directly from your pay to that of a randomly selected lowest paid worker would you do it?

We could argue we simply cannot afford to go without the pay rise, even though that is exactly what we did before it was offered.

We could complain that we are struggling ourselves, however, saying that to the lowest paid worker, on much less, would almost be comical.

The current median income in Australia is less than $50,000. So, if one is earning more, you are earning more money than half of all taxpayers. Many of that half manage to pay the rent, buy food, clothes, and travel on that amount. So, we can manage to forgo a pay increase.

If we really believe we do not have enough to spare, we could take the Sir Karl Popper approach. Agreeing not on, how much we want, but what is too little to cover basic needs.

In the case of Sir Popper, he was focusing on the social ills of society rather than what makes an ideal society. Believing the latter would be more fought over than the former. There is more agreement over what is bad than what is good.

So, in our case, there could be more of an agreement over what is too little.

If those basics needs are not met, we forgo all or part of a wage increase to help others. 

The basic needs could be things like indoor plumbing, shelter, three meals a day, a few pairs of clothes, healthcare, and ensuring not just existence, but being part of society, some entertainment.

There would also need to be some savings to cover costed emergencies, not having money for the sake of just having money in the bank.

For the sake of argument let us agree that we need less than we think we do. And that people, here and abroad, have less then they need.

The person in Detroit, America for example that goes without water to the home because they cannot afford the cost. The person in Cambodia without indoor plumbing. The person in Australia trapped in an overcrowded house.

Are Australians going to forgo a pay increase?

Would we change our minds based on who the worker was? A low paid worker in Australia versus in America or Africa? It is not the suffering we care about, but perhaps the nationality.

How the system worked, would that change our minds? It could be viewed as a basic income, which is currently a popular idea. Yet, like many popular things in society, not so popular if we must pay for it.

Tax increases are not popular, so collecting the money via tax may not be supported. 

Charity is not that popular either.  If you gave $3 a day to help people in need, you would be giving more to charity than most Australians.   

For it to work, there would have to be a universalism to it. Not, means-tested, but more about agreeing to help all people in need, deemed deserving or not.

An irony is that we want charity to be effective, but our own approach to helping is usually not.

Many complain about government spending too much on those most in need, like the unemployed, but are happy for people, us, to receive help.  In the form of things like negative gearing, (loss revenue to the government) and child-care rebates, where even people above $70,000 can get rebates.  

The fact that the ask is to help the lowest paid workers, and not the lowest paid people may prove a point. There tends to be more support for helping workers than those that do not work, another ineffective approach. 

We could argue, as many Australians do, that the government should help those in need. We should not be forgoing anything. 

There is also the argument the poor should help themselves. 

So, the only people in this situation that do not have to do anything, as luck would have it, is us.

Would Australians who do not support such a system, expect to be helped if the situation were reversed? And they needed the system.

So, are we going to forgo that pay increase?

It is easier to pledge to give more to charity [or to the lowest paid worker}, if we can do it later, when the pay increase comes. A kind of buy now, pay later.

Now this system is not going to end all poverty. Yet, doing nothing at all seems to be an even better way to ensure the system fails.

A response to the claim that our efforts would achieve little is not to give nothing, but to give more.