“Want a job at the Pig?” asked my best friend Steve.

By my reaction, you would have thought he’d asked if I wanted a date with Kathy Ireland rather than inquiring about a job as a grocery sacker at the Piggly Wiggly. But I was living at Steve’s parent’s house rent-free, and needed to earn some money. And in Clarksville, Texas in 1985, the prospects of an inexperienced teen finding a good job were only slightly better than chances of dating a supermodel.

The elation was short-lived, though, and lasted only until I saw my first paycheck. As a full-time student working for a job that qualified for tips (I never, ever got tips) my employer was allowed to pay me the subminimum wage of $2.85 a hour (the equivalent of $5.87 in 2012). After FICA and Social Security took their cut, there wasn’t much left for me.

So if Ronald Reagan had announced in his State of the Union address that he was raising the minimum wage to $4.37 an hour (the equivalent in 1986 of Obama’s $9 minimum wage) I would have been ecstatic. Like all my fellow proletarian coworkers I was disdainful of Reagan’s economic policies, particularly his refusal to raise the minimum wage. Reagan’s was the only administration not to have raised the minimum wage since it was introduced nationally in 1938—a fact we often repeated in the breakroom as we looked at our paystubs and cussed the president.

Twenty-seven years later, though, I see the situation differently. I realize that I have not only my friend Steve but also President Reagan to thank for my getting hired at the Piggly Wiggly. Had the minimum wage been raised, the store owner could have never afforded to hire me. Since my labor was barely worth $2.85 an hour, having a government imposed price increase on wages of 52% would have priced me out of the market.

As William Graham Sumner explained in 1883, by attempting to do me a favor—by artificially raising the minimum wage I must be paid—the politicians were hurting both me and my potential employer:
Read more on The Forgotten Man at the Piggly Wiggly…

After decades of bloody turmoil between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, on March 26, 2007, Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, sitting side-by-side at Stormont confirmed that power-sharing will return to Northern Ireland on May 8th of that same year. It was supposed to be a “new era.” Unfortunately, in order for Ireland to recover from decades of a very complicated history it needs a growing economy. Northern Ireland’s economy is in steep decline because it remains such a high-taxed welfare state.

For example, jobless remains at extremely high levels. The BBC reports that between June and August of 2011 8.1% of the population were unemployed. In fact,

Over the year, the number of people claiming unemployment benefit has increased by 4.8%, to 63,400, while in the UK as a whole the figure has fallen by 1.4%. A large proportion of the unemployed are young people, with 21.1% of those between aged between 18 and 24 now unemployed, up 3.0% over the year.

Northern Ireland also has high minimum wage rates—about $7.87/hr for workers 18-20 years-old—and a ridiculous corporate tax rate of 24%. This “one-two punch” does nothing but discourage the starting of new businesses, foreign direct investment, and provide incentives for companies not to hire young people. The Central Bank of Ireland, in a moment of common sense, now believes that maybe, just maybe, high corporate taxes stifle job creation. According to the BBC,
Read more on Northern Ireland: Coming to America?…

On Public Discourse, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg observes in a new piece that “while moral beliefs have an important impact upon economic life, the manner in which they are given institutional expression also matters. This is illustrated by the different ways in which people’s responsibilities to those in need—what might be called the good of solidarity—are given political and economic form.”

Read more on Samuel Gregg: Socialism and Solidarity…

This week’s Acton Commentary. Sign up for our free, weekly email newsletter here. While you’re at it, pick up a copy of Victor Claar’s new monograph, Fair Trade: It’s Prospects as a Poverty Solution, in the Acton Bookshoppe.

Read more on Meaningful Work and the Economics Nobel…

Carl Trueman has a lengthy reflection and asks some pertinent and pressing questions on the nature of work and human intellectual development.

Recalling his job at a factory as a young man in the 1980s, Trueman writes concerning those who were still at their positions on the line when he had moved on:

Read more on Questions on Work and Intellectual Development…