George Will vs. Pope Francis | National Catholic Reporter

George Will vs. Pope Francis | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: My father would likely agree with Will and not the Pope.   This is more about Will v. Obma than Will v. Francis.  The dismal science actually both theorizes and confirms that minimum wage increases do not lead to job loss because such workers mostly toil under monopsonistic working conditinos - meaning that they are paid under their productivity - often by a lot.  Experience mostly proves that out, as does the contention that non-minimum wage workers feel the increase because employers mostly raise the entire scale of salaries when the bottom is increased.  A famous quote I once saw on Facebook was the if you work the minimum wage your employer is paying you as little as possible without breaking the law.

As for discouraged workers - many simply retired or were able to qualify for disabilitty.  While I do blame Obama for not doing something about underwater mortgages, the fact that conditions continued to get worse after his inaugural still says loads about George W. Bush and less about Obama, who did a stimulus bill that was anemic because it had to convince 3 Republican Senators to vote for it.

A living wage is a good idea.  The GOP actually has made progress in this area by putting in the EITC and the Child Tax Credit (and then increasing it - Obama confirmed the larger sum).  Still, the CTC is about 12 times too low to be a living wage - with each family getting twelve thousand for each child as an addition to payroll.  The Church should do that too.  If they did, they would not care about the contraceptive coverage of their employees.