Does It Pay to Work?

A living wageLiving in the Spirit
Light a Candle for Children
September 21, 2014 

Scripture Reading: Matthew 20:1-16

 ‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. — Matthew 20:1-2

For many people in the United States, work does not pay and that is not right. I discuss this in my book, Houses Divided, and I will call your attention here to one segment of that book:

Let us say you and one other family member, most often now a minor child, are earning $13,922.55 [Minimum wage in 2012 minus Social Security and Medicare] per year, $1,160.21 per month. How are you going to make ends meet? You will most likely have to rely on food stamps, Medicaid and a child care subsidy. If you every get a raise, it will be deducted from those supplements until eventually you will max out on eligibility and totally fall off an economic cliff, potentially leaving you in worse shape than when you got the job in the first place. It is a bleak existence.*

This cycle of poverty will never be broken unless we enable our children through education to achieve a higher entry point in the world of work. Children living in poverty need a little extra help at all levels to make the move from poverty to earning a living wage. We as a society need to also assure that everyone earns a living wage.

Oklahoma Fact: in 2013, Oklahoma ranged 40th in education outcomes in the United States.**

Prayer: Grant that we might be a people who share in the blossoming of our children into the fullness of their potentials. Amen.

*Marilynn Knott, Houses Divided: A Letter to the Churches of the USA on Church and State, Archway Publishing, 2013, Page 94.
**2003 KIDS Count Profile: Oklahoma. Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, www.oica.org.
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.