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COUNTERPOINT The Compassion of the Living Wage By STEPHEN PALMER 02.01.04 9:48PM CST Underlying American culture is the pervasive idea of the American Dream - that anyone who works hard can make it and become rich, famous or at the very least, comfortable. Unfortunately, in this day and age, the promise of the American Dream rings hollow to millions of Americans who are not given the tools necessary to compete in the modern world. It is no longer adequate that an individual should be willing to work hard. Nowadays, the only way to compete for jobs that pay well in the global economy is through education. Although it may be a bit of a truism, no matter how hard we're willing to work, we need knowledge to compete in the knowledge economy and many Americans have been deprived of this opportunity. Despite meaningless presidential decrees to the contrary, the current U.S. system of public education is leaving many children behind. Not only do children from minority and low-income families graduate and attend college in much lower percentages than their white counterparts, they score at lower rates on standardized tests, and even show lower levels of knowledge on tests administered before kindergarten. So, certain populations are entering school at a disadvantage, which only gets compounded as they move through the system. Shall we penalize the student from a poor, minority family who barely graduates from high school for the fact that his parents couldn't read and so never read to him as a kid? Or shall we penalize him because the school in the inner city where he grew up was much worse than the public schools in the suburbs? Or should we punish him for working after school to help pay the rent and not always having time to do his homework? Of course, there will always be some individuals from even the worst possible environments who are able to overcome their situation but can we really even pretend that the system is providing equal opportunities to all students if 1 percent of students from one situation go to college compared to 90 percent of students from another situation? In a fairer, more just society, and one more oriented towards the success of all its citizens, these problems would not arise. Universal preschool would bring all kids up to a minimum entrance level for kindergarten, all public schools would be equally good, and the social safety net would be sufficient to prevent students from being forced to choose between their own future potential and their family's present needs. Unfortunately, however, the United States today is not as fair and just a society as it could be and so imperfect policies are occasionally necessary to patch some of the more egregious holes in the social fabric. Like affirmative action, the living wage is necessary because the national public education system fails in some situations. We can all work toward the goal of universal, adequate public education, but until that goal is realized certain populations will fall through the cracks. We will only be able to maintain the semblance of a just system if we implement policies to assist those who have been failed by the rest of the system. Although a living wage may cause some people to choose not to attend college, the choice will remain theirs. In the absence of a living wage, millions of Americans will not even have the option of pursuing a better life. |
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