KAZ SPOT

FAITH AND THE MINIMUM WAGE Raising Montana’s minimum wage shouldn’t take an act of God, so a number of Missoula’s churches and justice groups are rallying their members and the general public to vote for an increase this November as an act of faith. The advocate position in the 2006 Voter Information Pamphlet states that “people who work full time shouldn’t have to live in poverty.” A full time worker relying on minimum wage makes only $11,000 a year. Jean Woessner of “Many Faiths, One Voice: Missoulians for Wage Justice” states there are 30,000 FTE minimum wage workers in Montana, and 13,000 children being supported by those workers. “This isn’t a matter of charity,” she says about the proposed increase. “This is a matter of justice.” Montana’s Progressive Clergy Alliance and the United Church of Christ’s Justice and Peace Action Network agree. Together they sponsored the recent downtown “Rally for the Wage,” where speakers of many faiths explained why raising Montana’s minimum wage is an issue that goes beyond economics. One speaker said that improving the lives of our community’s poor was an obligation in her Jewish faith that active believers must help meet. Many Christians feel the same. According to a statement put out by the United Church of Christ, “raising the minimum wage...is one of the most significant possibilities for addressing poverty.” Federal poverty guidelines enumerate a full time minimum wage earner supporting two dependants (the typical “single family household”) lives at almost $6000 below the poverty level- even when working 52 weeks a year. A working mom at the rally told how her minimum wage salary doesn’t cover the cost of her childcare. That’s no exaggeration. A single parent with two children has to pay about seven dollars an hour to cover childcare for two kids, more if meals are not included in the hourly rate of the daycare. Receiving only a minimum wage means workers with children can actually lose money while at their jobs, unless they have some other means of support. Betsy Mulligan-Dague, executive director of the Jeanette Rankin Peace Center, said that a decent wage is really about feeding families, and about making better citizens. “People can’t really be involved in larger community issues until they know their families are cared for,” she said. While the Peace Center’s non-profit status precludes them from taking a stand on political issues, they are able to educate the public about social justice issues. Peace, for Mulligan-Dague, isn’t only a lack of war, but a “just way to distribute wealth and resources.” Jean Woessner, of Missoula’s University Congregational Church, is an organizer of the group “Many Faiths, One Voice,” which advocates for raising the minimum wage. The group’s members include Catholics, Christian Scientists, Buddhists, Alternative Catholics, Jews, Methodists and Lutherans. “We can’t tell people what to do,” Woessner remarks, “but we can appeal to the foundations of their religions.” And those religions seem to support raising the minimum wage. “There’s a long history in the Judeo-Christian texts for taking care of the poor and enabling them to have an equal share in (society).” Increasing their earning potential is a way to do that. During a ‘Sacred Texts Study’ workshop put on by Many Faiths, about thirty attendees discovered that Christian, Native American, Jewish and Buddhist traditions all support raising the station of the poor. Betsy Mulligan-Dague called the wage initiative “a perfect bridge issue. It’s not right or left, conservative or liberal. It’s something we all have in common.” After all, she says, “you can’t have peace until the hungry are fed.”