Letter from Laird Campbell
Economics – April 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Editors:
Martha’s thought that people ought to be paid according to their value to society has one flaw. Who decides? How would you compare the worth of a professor of English at the University of Colorado with that of a football coach? Would the opinion of the president of the university be the same as that of the head of CU’s athletic booster society?
Sincerely,
Laird Campbell
Denver
Laird,
Yikes. Although I don’t feel that people are paid appropriately, I certainly don’t think that voters or government should decide relative pay (what a confusing mess that would be).
My point, however, was merely that working people who provide necessary services deserve to earn a living wage. Yet, in my view, instead of valuing the services that many of our citizens provide, our culture maligns the “working poor,” while encouraging poverty. In fact, the city of Salida is systematically making it illegal for the working poor to stay here.
Workers in our community are miserably paid by state and national standards, and yet our city has tried to eliminate trailers, modular housing, and small lots, and has adopted building codes which make it mandatory to immediately bring old homes up to modern code when owners so much as fix their roofs (thereby making both fixer uppers and average rent too costly for most young working families).
But this is not merely a local phenomenon. Most experts agree that America is losing its middle class. And that hardly surprises me since most of the working people I know — including Ed and me — come nowhere near making Colorado’s medium household income of $47,203. (In fact, I suspect many locals would be thrilled to make half of that).
But in my letter, I wasn’t proposing that our government should impose wage scales; I merely meant to suggest that we’re making this situation worse with ill-conceived codes, laws, taxes, etc.
Others, however, have expressed similar concerns in far greater detail, including authors Robert Pollin, Douglas Dowd, Michael Zweig, Kevin Phillips, Paul Krugman, Jim Hightower, Donald L. Barlett, and James B. Steele.
Readers may also be interested in David Cay Johnston’s new book, Perfectly Legal, which offers an in-depth look at tax inequities. Or for a more personal viewpoint on working hard and staying poor read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed.
Martha Quillen
