Minimum Wage and EITC

I got this link through a comment on my previous post on the minimum wage, but I want to make sure to call everyone’s attention to it. David Prenatt, Jr., on his blog Net Esquire, made a number of posts on the minimum wage debate, and particularly on the Earned Income Tax Credit as an alterantive to it. You can start with his latest, Simplifying the Minimum Wage Debate, and work your way from there.

I had not previously thought of the EITC as an alternative to the minimum wage, which simply illustrates the dangers of keeping one’s thinking inside the box. A little more flexibility allows me to see this as a viable alternative.

I wanted to underline this point because it illustrates my major point, which was that Christians can agree on the moral issues whilst disagreeing on the strategy. We can be in support of a living wage, and yet disagree on the strategies to accomplish that goal. Equating the strategy with the goal in a moral sense will simply prevent us from finding new and better strategies.