<p>An economist would argue that wages have nothing to do with being deserving. You are paid according to how difficult you are to replace in a particular labor market, not according to how worthy or deserving you are. </p>
<p>There is no category of labor, skilled or unskilled, in this country that is immune from the downward wage pressures of globalization and automation. Every doctor, nurse, engineer or computer scientist can be replaced by someone willing to work for less, if there are enough people entering those fields.</p>
<p>Greed is definitely a factor in wanting more without doing or contributing more. </p>
<p>Nobody is forcing people into any profession in this country. This is not the USSR or Cuba or anything like that. So, someone goes into a field by choice then complains about the money will find it hard to get sympathy.</p>
<p>If a person wants to make a lot of money then they have to consider their choices better and make better decisions. Who hasn’t had to work for minimum wage or take a crappy job until they could get a better one? Why do some people move up and out of crappy jobs while others strive to make a living at it? Why do people go to school and study hard and research different fields for their demand and income potential and some people never gain any skills other than ringing a cash register or taking a lunch order?</p>
<p>Most economists are social psychologists except they quantify their research in dollars and cents. They ask what decisions are people making and how does that affect their personal, local or national bottom line?</p>
<p>That’s what we’re talking about here. Someone did the same job for 25 years willingly and died broke. Why did she do that? It wasn’t done to her. She did it to herself. Didn’t she know after the first few years that she wasn’t making enough money?</p>
<p>Or maybe she was a victim of bad election results - Clinton taxed social security benefits, the dot com bubble burst in his administration, the country spent like a drunken sailor under Bush, we invested everything in war and the financial industry collapsed during his administration, under Obama, the price of gasoline has doubled, milk, beef and corn prices have sky rocketed and he’s been unable to get us out of the horrible mess he inherited and presides over the longest & worst economic conditions since the Great Depression. We could say that she is just the casualty of 25 years of the worst presidential and congressional policies in the history of this country.</p>
<p>As I said upthread, I don’t blame Dusquesne for this lady’s end-of-life situation.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You can certainly increase your “chances” of making more money through your choices of job training, etc. But there is no such thing as absolute security or a golden go. Many skilled professionals find themselves unemployed at midlife and “overqualified” for what’s available. They find themselves replaced by younger, cheaper labor in supercompetitive industries. They can’t pay their kids’ college tuitions and their house is foreclosed. They lose their health insurance and are too young for Medicare. Are they getting what they “deserve”? </p>
<p>Life is unfair and unpredictable. Maybe this lady should have made different choices earlier in her life. But it’s whistling past the graveyard to suggest that what happened to her can only happen to undeserving, unskilled, stupid people who made bad choices.</p>
<p>To be clear, I never said anyone was undeserving or stupid.</p>
<p>I also never said a decision was static. So, you are right. Deciding to be an engineer or doctor or lawyer may be a good economic choice today but be a bad choice 30 years from now. </p>
<p>Life is risky and sooner or later we will all die. It’s too short to complain. Be happy doing what you want to do and there is loss of dignity for a good person to die happy but poor.</p>
<p>Its a matter of philosophy. Some here blame the victim of corporate…educational institutional greed for not having done better for themselves. Others, such as myself, blame corporate greed on the refusal to pay livable wages to its workers so the higher ups can stuff their fat faces at the corporate trough.</p>
<p>While the term corporate greed is pretty strong and inflamatory I do think things have changed. The constant refrain heard now is maximizing shareholder returns. However when I went to B-school, which was not that long ago … 20 years ago, we we taught there were three stakeholders in the company and the decisions … the shareholders, the company, and the employees. Somehow over the last couple decades the shareholders have become a much bigger focus. BTW I do not think this is necessarily an evil plot … it may be the natural outcome of increased global competition … it might be that looking out for the employees beyond the pure economic need is harder to maintain now.</p>
<p>I think that the general issue of a fair or livable wage is separate from the issue of the wages that ought to be paid by a Catholic university.</p>
<p>If you Google Duquesne, you will find that the summary description associated with the website [Duquesne</a> University - Pittsburgh, PA | Duquesne University](<a href=“http://www.duq.edu%5DDuquesne”>http://www.duq.edu) says that Duquesne is the “largest, most comprehensive Catholic university in Pennsylvania.” </p>
<p>I think, then, the question “What is a livable wage?” should be replaced in this instance by “What is the Catholic understanding of a livable wage?”</p>
<p>As it happens, the idea of a just wage is covered in the Catholic catechism: </p>
<p>A just wage is the legitimate fruit of work. To refuse or withhold it can be a grave injustice. In determining fair pay, both the needs and the contributions of each person must be taken into account. Remuneration for work should guarantee humans the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for themselves and their family on the material, social, cultural and spiritual level, taking into account the role and the productivity of each, the state of the business, and the common good (Gaudium et Spes, #67). Agreement between the parties is not sufficient to justify morally the amount to be received in wages.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2434</p>
<p>A bit more and some commentary to follow, but I thought I’d prevent the post from becoming too long.</p>
<p>There is a rich Biblical tradition which underlies the Church’s insistence that it is a “grave injustice” to “refuse to pay a just wage” or to refuse to give a just wage “in due time and in due proportion to the work done.” (Compendium, No. 302) “You shall not defraud or rob your neighbor. You shall not withhold overnight the wages of your day laborer.” (Lev. 19:13) </p>
<p>“Behold,” says the Apostle James in his epistle echoing the Law and the Prophets, “the wages you withheld from the workers who harvested your fields are crying aloud, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.” (James 5:4) It is a deeply traditional and properly conservative spirit–as old as the prophets–that lies behind the Church’s insistence that the employer ought to pay a just wage. We are dealing with a moral injunction which trumps economic motive or justifications.</p>
<p>So I think the underlying question about Duquesne is: How much time did they think that they were paying the Adjunct Professor for? Clearly her teaching obligations would involve time beyond the class time. Presumably she was not expected to be engaged in scholarship or research, as a permanent faculty member would be. There is a complicating factor that the classroom scheduling would apparently not permit her to hold a separate part-time job, except in the evening.</p>
<p>In any event, I think that Duquesne’s salary policy for adjuncts should not depend on the least amount they can get away with.</p>
<p>I haven’t seen any information about the woman’s life before she started working for Duquesne, about 25 years ago. Perhaps she was a stay-at-home mother, and was widowed. Perhaps she was a stay-at-home mother, and was divorced late in life. Perhaps she was a nun and decided to leave holy orders. Perhaps she lost her job in one of the economic downturns and couldn’t find any comparable one. I hear that baby boomer women are the slowest to recover from the recent recession, in terms of unemployment. This person is older than the boomers, and probably had even worse job prospects.</p>
<p>Personally, if I worked at Duquesne, I’d be embarrassed.</p>
<p>It seems like people did try to help her but she rebuffed some offers of help. As I said earlier, I am originally from Pittsburgh and am very familiar with her neighborhood. I am visiting Pittsburgh now and there is an ad in the local paper today from a local senior building with immediate openings based on income. Her old house she lived in was badly in need of repair and was apparently “unlivable” . She may have been a hoarder but I am not certain of that . She may have just not been willing to leave this old house and that may have been part of the problem. I really am not sure what else Duquesne was expected to do ?( and I have no connection with Duquesne and am not Catholic-I actually went to grad school at Pitt). Here is a link from a Duquesne paper. [Priest</a> details late adjunct?s stay on campus : Duquesne Student Media](<a href=“http://www.duqsm.com/priest-details-late-adjuncts-stay-on-campus/]Priest”>Priest details late adjunct's stay on campus • The Duquesne Duke)
Also <a href=“http://www.duqsm.com/details-emerge-on-adjuncts-final-months/[/url]”>http://www.duqsm.com/details-emerge-on-adjuncts-final-months/</a></p>
<p>The whole thing is very sad and like many elderly folks, Margaret was clearly in need of assistance from friends ,family, and social services.</p>
<p>adjuncts make $2250/course at the Community College of Allegheny County, and $2100/course at Point Park juco. So, Duquense pay of $3000 is attractive.</p>
<p>edited to add: the national average appears to be $2987/course, based on one study. That number includes the prestigious Unis which pay well: Harvard pays over $10k/course. But then I assume that H also has a long list of required academic credentials on a cv.</p>
<p>And somewhere, it is corrected to $3500, no? If she’s teaching one course, counted as nine hours/week, I’m figuring it is the equivalent to over 40k/year. Maybe more if the semester is shorter.</p>
<p>Now, I know QM works more than X courses x 9 hours. That’s not the frame of reference.</p>
<p>Is it true that a professor or associate professor generally teaches 4 or 5 classes a term? That surprises me. Your husband teaches that many classes a term?</p>
<p>In my experience, teaching loads vary greatly, usually dependant on the type of institution and the research expectations for faculty. So, at many top-tier research universities, teaching loads may be as little as 1 course a semester (and for the stars, sometimes not even that) although a 2-2 load is more common. At community colleges and some directional universities where there is minimal (or no) expectation for research/publishing, the course load could be as high as 5-5. And you’ll find every combination in between.</p>
<p>The senior associate counsel of the United Steelworkers, who wrote a column for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on the adjunct’s circumstances, said that the adjunct professor was working at an Eat 'n Park at night. That was the evening job I was referring to.</p>
<p>I am not sure whether you know that she actually did not have the job at Eat 'n Park, lookingforward (#136), or what you meant by saying that she did not have an evening job.</p>
<p>It is amusing how so many will justify treating others so terribly. Its the victims fault after all. They should have stood up for themselves. Now some are arguing that it is impossible to define a livable wage. Reminds me of the Supreme Court ruling on Pornography when a Justice said we may not be able to define Porno, but we know it when we see it.</p>
<p>So lets see, Duquesne charges as much as $943 per credit hour for some classes, as much as $1,127 per credit hour for others. So ONE student in this adjunct’s class was paying her salary. Everything else went to the people at the top of the pyramid. Ah, but everybody is doing it is the next defense, which gets me back to the fact that we are run by a bunch of Narcissistic Boomers who have ruined our country and ruined the Middle Class through nothing but sheer Greed. This story, with all of its holes, is nothing less than an example of the disgraceful practices of our vaunted non-profit higher educational institutions.</p>