The Compassion of Opportunity: Moving Beyond Wage Mandates

I recently sat down with a group of Church elders in the Washington D.C. area. It is a wonderful congregation—the kind of place understanding faith as more than a Sunday morning activity. These individuals view faith as a commitment to building a sustainable community. They are currently in the process of standing up a child-focused play service and a parent-focused cafe, structured as a social enterprise.

As we discussed the logistics of revenues and expenses, the topic of compensation arose. Almost instantly, a mantra was recited: "We always pay over minimum wage. We want to be fair and make sure we are paying more than a living wage."

The elders delivered this statement with reflexive certainty. Such certainty suggests the matter is settled—not just economically, but morally. It is a well-embedded cultural presumption, like a piece of DNA most would never dream of challenging.

I could not help it; I recoiled. This physical response was visible enough for them to kindly ask for my thoughts. I warned them my perspective might be challenging. They invited it anyway.

The Problem with Universal Judgment

In my walk of faith, I have always been moved by Billy Graham’s succinct wisdom: "My job is to love; God’s job is to judge." When we invoke "minimum wage" or "living wage" laws, we step out of the realm of love and into the realm of judgment. We attempt to provide a single, arbitrary number to judge what is "fair" for every person in every circumstance.

The fatal flaw in this logic—one pointed out for decades by those looking at results rather than intentions—is our simple lack of knowledge regarding the unique situation of the individual across the table. For a teenager living at home with zero overhead, a "sub-minimum" wage might be an extraordinary opportunity to gain the "human capital" necessary for a lifetime of success. For a person with deep community ties and low expenses, those same wages might be a perfectly acceptable trade-off for a meaningful workplace.

By mandating a floor, we judge their needs for them. We say, "We know your needs better than you do." This is not love; it is a form of soft-hearted authoritarianism.

The Real Minimum Wage: $0.00

A stubborn fact exists which proponents of wage floors often ignore:

The real minimum wage is always zero. 

This is the wage received by the person never hired because an artificial salary floor made the business economically impossible to sustain. It is the wage of the person whose job was automated or eliminated because the "socially conscious" mandate exceeded the economic value of the task.

In the context of a social enterprise like a church cafe, the stakes are even higher. If we price our labor based on a "habituated mantra" rather than economic reality, we risk the sustainability of the very enterprise designed to serve the community. If the cafe fails because the "fair" wages were too high to sustain the "honest profit" required for growth, we have helped no one. We have simply destroyed a platform for community engagement.

Love as Trust, Not Mandate

From my standpoint at PFR, LOVE is where we trust the members of our community to make decisions for themselves.

• Trust in the Individual: If a wage is too low for a person’s specific needs, they will—and should—go elsewhere.

• The Value of Experience: A job is more than a paycheck; it is a classroom. It provides training, discipline, and a sense of agency.

• Honoring the Choice: When we allow a person to accept a job at a rate they agree to, we honor their dignity as an adult capable of navigating their own life.

When we impose a "living wage" floor, we do not just raise costs; we often "price out" the very people needing the first rung of the economic ladder the most. We effectively tell the person with few skills their labor is worth nothing unless it is worth $15 or $20 an hour. If their current output is only worth $10, we have not given them a raise; we have given them a pink slip.

The Social Enterprise of Honest Profit

A social business focused on "honest profit" is one of the most moral engines in society. Profit is not a dirty word; it is a signal you are creating more value for the community than you are consuming in resources.

To me, love is honoring our community members with jobs enabling them to engage with this process. It is providing a space where they can earn, learn, and contribute. We must stop using the "minimum wage" as a moral shield protecting us from the hard work of individual discernment.

Let us stop judging what is "fair" from a distance and start loving our neighbors enough to let them work.

Resources for the Curious

On the Real Minimum Wage: > "Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many people receive in the wake of the creation or increase of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor market." — Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics

On Human Capital and "Fairness": > "The word 'fairness' is a common substitute for thought. It is used to justify the taking of what belongs to some and giving it to others, or to justify the preventing of some from doing what others are allowed to do." — The Thomas Sowell Reader

Billy Graham on Bill Clinton: > Billy Graham famously used this sentiment to explain his friendship with the President despite their theological and moral differences. This quote occurred when questioned about Clinton's infidelity and the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

"It is the Holy Spirit's job to convict, God's job to judge, and my job to love."

Adam Smith on Honest Profit and the Dignity of Exchange: > Smith views a voluntary transaction as an act between equals. Both parties must believe the trade improves their situation, or the trade would never occur.