Being in agreement with my colleagues who have criticized strongly The Daily Northwestern’s position on the Living Wage Campaign, I will not repeat their arguments in favor of paying people enough to live on. I will also leave the economics of the question to others in that field. But I was saddened to see The Daily take such a position, and surprised by the basic inner contradiction the argument contains.

You say that The Daily has traditionally leaned left, but apparently wants to change its opinion on this issue. Presumably then you want to reduce the role of government in people’s lives, which is what the right-leaning parties advocate. Why do you then want to make the least paid workers continually dependent on government programs and welfare?

You also say that you want to help workers “increase their skills and earning potential.” Fine-but then these employees will move up to other more demanding jobs, which still leaves the simplest jobs to be done by other people who will have to be hired and will still need to be paid. So the welfare dependency cycle is never broken.

I believe this issue transcends both left and right and should be seen from the perspective of the least paid people who do necessary work that does not demand skilled labor, and who want to be able to live decently on what they earn. Making such employees dependent on government welfare is not the answer, and is not in keeping with the spirit of justice that The Daily says it wants to uphold.

Sylvie Romanowski, Professor (French)