When the Creditors Enslave the Children

When the Creditors Enslave the Children -- II Kings 4:1-7

            The prophet Elisha was originally the apprentice of the prophet Elijah. You may remember the story of God sending a fiery chariot down to carry Elijah into heaven – swing low sweet chariot. Before Elijah was carried into heaven he asked his apprentice Elisha, if there was anything he could do for him before he left this world. Elisha replied, “I would like a double portion of your spirit.”
          So when the chariot came and scooped up Elijah, his cloak fell from his shoulders and landed on Elisha, who received the anointing of the spirit and initiated a spectacular prophetic career in which he was credited with performing many miracles. It was an evil time in the history of the Northern Kingdom. The rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer, and many poor people were being sold into slavery, if they could not pay their debts. The impoverishment and enslavement of a good part of the population became the downfall of the Northern Kingdom. Slaves don’t make good soldiers. They have nothing to fight for. When a society develops a predatory upper class that drives the middle class into poverty, pretty soon the society will collapse.
            The Prophet Amos active from 760 – 750 BCE spoke most stridently against the abuses of the nobility in the Northern Kingdom. He could already foresee the end in sight, for the day would come, when the Assyrian Empire would swallow up the Northern Kingdom, because the lack of economic justice in the land undermined the morale of the common people and the social structure disintegrated: “because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes—they that trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth. . .”
            The concerns for economic justice raised by Elisha and Amos have a remarkably contemporary ring to them. The minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour since 1997, almost ten years. In that time inflation has eroded the value of that $5.15 an hour so that low wage workers are laboring 40 hours a week and still find themselves below the poverty line. At $5.15 per hour working 40 hours per week for 52 weeks a year, a low wage worker only earns $10,710 per year.
In figure 2.1 in your bulletin you can see a comparison between changes in worker productivity and changes in the minimum wage relative to inflation. From 1947 – 1973 worker productivity increased 104% and the minimum wage relative to inflation increased 101%. From 1973 – 2004 worker productivity increased 78%, while the minimum wage adjusted for inflation actually lost 24% of its value. As increasing numbers of people find themselves in lower wage jobs with no health care benefits, as more people are driven to bankruptcy by predatory lending practices, we are in danger of developing a kind of wage slavery in the United States. People trapped in a cycle of working poverty cannot rise above the level of squalor working two or even three jobs. The promise of the welfare reform act was that work was the way out of poverty rather than a job keeping you destitute. We are confronting a serious problem of economic justice in our nation.
And not only are the very poorest workers affected by the structural inequalities of our economy, middle-class workers are being squeezed and down sized into financial vulnerability. For as real wages have failed to increase, as more middle class jobs have been outsourced, as manufacturing jobs have disappeared middle class folks are refinancing home mortgages in order to trade home equity for cash to try to maintain their lifestyles. A frightening percentage of Americans are spending more than they earn. We are only a mild recession away from millions of Americans falling out of the middle-class and slipping into poverty.

At the same time the middle-class is shrinking corporate profits and CEO salaries have sky rocketed.   In 1980 the average CEO salary was 42 times as much as the pay of the average worker. In 2005 the average CEO salary was 411 times the pay of the average worker. And in most instances the size of the CEO compensation was not tied to corporate performance. A stunning example of this inequity has been the Delphi Corporation Bankruptcy.   The same executives who had led the company into losses of over $5.5 billion dollars awarded themselves $38 million dollars in bonuses at the same time they were informing regular workers that there would be a 60% pay cut.
Another particularly egregious example is United Health Group’s William McGuire, who back dated his stock options for a total profit of $1.8 billion. Now here is an industry devoted to managed health care, that is supposed to save everyone money on their health insurance. Tell me how a company squeezing doctors and hospitals to perform services at below cost and telling you and me whether or not we can have a medical procedure can afford to give their CEO $1.8 billion. Apparently he may have to give some of it back. And this is in an economy where increasing numbers of workers are paying more for or losing their health benefits. This is an economy where the number one reason for filing bankruptcy is uninsured medical bills. As in the time of the Prophet Amos we have structural inequalities in our economy that need to be examined, because as the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer the fabric of community in our society is fraying and unraveling.
            I’ve pointed out the problem, and I don’t claim to have the answers. We are trying to confront problems that are bigger than all of us, and we are going to have to talk with each other to find some answers. So allow me to suggest a couple of ideas. If you don’t agree, that’s alright what do I know anyway.

Going back to a system that encourages people to remain on welfare, surviving on government benefits is not the answer. Welfare robs the poor of their initiative and their dignity. People need to work and contribute as they are able. Work gives structure and promotes discipline in our lives, and that is good.

At the same time I want to make clear that there are persons with disabilities who are limited in their ability to work, or may be unable to work and those persons need to be treated with compassion, dignity and generosity.

Many Americans will have to adjust their economic aspirations and adopt life styles they can afford. We cannot live on borrowed money. Congress may need to learn that lesson also. After all, how long will the Chinese be willing to buy our treasury bills? Americans have to learn to budget, and live within our means. At the same time I would note that the plight of low wage workers is so critical they cannot lower their aspirations any further.

In the years ahead we are all going to have to share the sacrifices more equitably. We cannot allow top management to award themselves golden parachutes at the same time the pensions of ordinary workers are gutted. Stock holders will have to rein in the compensation of top executives. With many middle-class jobs disappearing the disparity of income between top management and ordinary workers is not socially sustainable. Can anyone be worth $1.8? Reward hard work and achievement but reward everyone. Don’t reward management for lowering other people’s wages and benefits.

Consider increasing the minimum wage. I know this is controversial in some quarters. The argument is that increasing the minimum wage leads to increases in unemployment. Increase the wages of low wage workers, and businesses will not hire them. But minimum wage and low wage jobs are usually work that cannot be outsourced. And far from causing businesses to close, increases in the minimum wage have historically helped business. Increased wages in the hands of the poor get pumped right back into the economy. Also, all of the 18 states who have adopted state minimum wages higher than the national minimum wage of $5.15 per hour have had higher rates of job growth than the national average. It seems counter intuitive but none-the-less true.

(Some of this information you can find on web site www.letjusticeroll.org. This movement for a living wage is being sponsored by such radical organizations as American Friends Service Committee, Catholic Committee of the South, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Just Harvest, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, The National Council of Churches, Presbyterian Church USA, Progressive National Baptist Convention, The Episcopal Church USA, The Union for Reformed Judaism, The Unitarian Universalist Association, The United Methodist Church, fourteen State Councils of Churches, and the United Church of Christ to name a few.
Increasing the minimum wage is preferable to increasing welfare or other government income transfer programs. Again it is a matter of preserving initiative and dignity.

Consider some form of National Health Insurance. The greatest anxiety of the unemployed and low wage workers is uninsured illness. The number of uninsured people in our society is climbing and the uninsured place a terrible burden on the health care system of our nation. Uninsured people wait to see if it will get better, when it would be cheaper to treat their illnesses sooner rather than later. Generally speaking treating illness in a timely and dignified manner costs less money. Our hospitals are being squeezed by the need to provide treatment for people who cannot afford it. Uninsured persons tend to enter the system through the emergency room, which is far more expensive than attending to their needs in other venues.

Some form of National Health Insurance would also be a subsidy to American business. Presently when our government tries to offer subsidies to businesses who are hard pressed with foreign competition, the World Trade Organization cries foul and slaps a penalty on our businesses. But they would not penalize our companies, if our nation adopted National Health Insurance. Europe does it all the time. And the greatest factor inhibiting businesses from hiring American workers is not the wages but the cost of benefits. National Health Insurance would subsidize the cost of benefits for American Businesses and level the playing field with foreign companies. We might even begin to reclaim some manufacturing jobs in the future.
True, someone would have to pay for National Health Insurance, but maybe that is a better way of sharing the sacrifice in the years ahead, than making direct income payments to people, or allowing people to starve or die for lack of medical care.

Reform predatory lending practices. I remember growing up in Nebraska, you know that center of leftist radicals, you could not charge more than 8% interest. Over 8% interest was considered usury and it was a criminal offense – loan sharking. Today our lending practices – Car Title Loans, Pay Day Loans, Credit Card Fees, Penalties and 27% Interest – make the 15% loan shark of the past look tame in comparison. I understand people need to exercise economic self-discipline, but we should not prey upon people who fall on hard times.

I’m not suggesting that I have proposed the answer. But we do need to talk about the increasing disparities of income in our nation. If you think I’m all wrong that’s O.K., what do I know. But we need to talk about it. We need to talk about how to share the sacrifice more equitably and how to help low wage workers out of extreme poverty. And I believe the dialogue about economic justice needs to begin in our churches, synagogues and mosques. The political discourse in this nation is so acrimonious that I do not think our politicians can discuss these issues and find real solutions. No the answers to the questions we have raised will have to come from the bottom up. And if people of good will can come to some common ground about how to address our economic inequalities, then maybe something can be begin to happen. A compassionate nation should not have whole groups of people worrying about whether or not they can access basic health care.
We need to address these issues before the social fabric unravels and the Prophet Amos says to us: Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of the United States, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes -- they that trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and turn aside the way of the afflicted.