Teach them to fish: Minimum wage increase not longterm solution to poverty

The minimum wage rate is going up — and there will be positives and negatives that will go along with that decision in North Carolina.

And the federal government is also expected to take up the cause of national increase sometime this year.

But while we are thinking about increasing the minimum wage, perhaps we should consider something that would make future increases obsolete.

Maybe we should figure out how to keep more people off minimum wage in the first place.

It is easy to make speeches in support of a wage hike. It sounds good. It sounds compassionate. But it really does not address the root of the problem.

If we really want to stop poverty in America, one of the best ways is to make sure we have an educated workforce with the training and skills necessary to earn a livable wage. And the best way to do that is to keep our children in school until graduation day — and then to encourage as many as possible to seek a college education or vocational training.

Increasing the minimum wage is a temporary and surface solution to a much more complicated issue.

To push education and training is that same “teach them to fish” idea that seems to have worked so well in so many places around the world.

And it is a philosophy we should encourage.

Published in Editorials on January 2, 2007 11:23 AM