HUNTER BAKER: The Minimum Wage, Family Values, and the Noted Christian Academic.

During a recent visit to Twitter, I happened across a post from a noted Christian academic. He had composed the kind of pithy remark which is tailor-made to launch a hundred admiring retweets. Paraphrasing slightly, it was something like this:  “Conservatives, don’t talk to me about family values if you doesn’t endorse a minimum wage increase.”

The problem is that there is no necessary connection between family values and increasing the minimum wage. First off, there is a vigorous, unsettled debate over the effectiveness of the minimum wage. . . . It would be entirely possible for a proponent of family values to rationally conclude that the minimum wage is counterproductive . . .

Second, the noted Christian thinker did not consider that there are fundamental questions about things like minimum wage laws. What is a minimum wage law? It is a demand, underwritten by the threat and/or use of government force, that employers pay no less than a stated amount for an hour of work. It is entirely possible to think that such a power should not be wielded by the government of a free people and still be a caring person. The retailer Hobby Lobby, for example, is well-known for paying substantially more than the minimum wage in its stores. The owners of that corporation are devout Christians. Would this academic suggest that the owners of Hobby Lobby be deficient in their family values if they paid their employees well above the minimum wage while opposing such an exercise of power by the government?