In a previous post, I expressed skepticism at the thought that employers necessarily owe employees a living wage. I asked, what if an employee is just not very productive, and so his hourly marginal product is below the hourly living wage rate, whatever that is. In that case, for the employer to pay the employee a living wage would mean the employer loses money each hour the employee works for him. I also wrote:

Isn’t it more plausible to think that if there’s some enforceable positive duty to provide [unproductive employee] Bob with enough stuff to lead a good life, that all of us, together share this burdensome duty, rather than just Bob’s employer? Why should Bob’s employer, specifically, be the one that has to bear the burden and lose all this money to keep Bob alive (at whatever level you consider decent)? This just seems like a kind of moral outsourcing to me. Why not instead Bob’s neighbors, parents, friends, or sexual partners?

Some commentators said that this question was moot, as all workers are productive enough that an employer could pay them a living wage and yet still profit or at least break even from hiring them. Of course, these commentators said that because they want it to be true, not because they had any evidence that it’s true.

If you’re on the Left, you might be tempted to believe something like the following: “With the exception of a few disabled people, perhaps, all adult workers are productive enough that their potential employers can hire them at a living wage [however you might define that] and still make a profit.” If you find yourself thinking something like that, ask, did you come to this conclusion after studying labor economics closely, or did you come to it because it would be convenient for your ideology? Unless you define the “living wage” as very low, it would be pretty surprising if this were true. So, for instance, this website defines a living wage for a single adult living alone in the District of Columbia as $13.68/hr, a single adult with one child living as $26.37/hr, and one adult with 2 children as $32.97/hr. Do you think many low-income workers in DC are producing $32.97/hr?* Even in DC, that doesn’t seem very plausible. Is it even plausible to think that all potential employees will produce $13.68/hr? Many low-income workers are dysfunctional, badly behaved, or just not very skilled. Sorry.

Now here are my new questions.

In the MIT Living Wage Calculator, what counts as a living wage depends not merely on the local cost of living, but also on how many income-earners and how many dependents a family has. That seems entirely reasonable. Of course, you need more money to support 10 kids at a decent level than to support 1. Thus, the MIT living wage calculator says that a single adult, living in DC, with no kids needs to make $14.84/hr, but if she has 3 kids, she needs to make $49.19/hr. Seems reasonable to me. Questions:

If you believe employers owe employees a living wage, do you think that an employer has a moral duty to pay an employee more just because she has more children? Suppose Bob and Jane are equally productive employees with the same background credentials and qualifications. Suppose they are getting paid the same amount, and both right now make an amount that exceeds the MIT living wage. But suppose Bob later has triplets, and as a result, suddenly makes less than the MIT living wage (since the living wage for a person with three children is higher than a person with none). Is the employer obligated to pay him more because of that? Suppose the employer decides to pay Bob much more than Jane because Bob has triplets, even though they are equally productive employees. Suppose Jane says, “Bob is getting paid $50 an hour, and I’m only getting paid $20, even though we’re equally productive. That’s not fair–he shouldn’t get paid almost three times what I’m paid just because he had kids.” Should we tell Jane she’s an evil and immoral jerk who just doesn’t care about social justice? Suppose Bob’s labor is only worth $23/hr to his employer. When he has triplets in DC, he now needs to make $50/hr to get a living wage. If the employer says, “I can’t afford to keep Bob on a living wage, so I’ll just fire him. After all, I care about social justice, and I don’t want to pay a worker less than a living wage.” Does the employer do the right thing?