The Editors of The Christian Century published “McWages” on February 16, 2014. The Christian Century is a progressive, ecumenical magazine based in Chicago. Committed to thinking critically and living faithfully, the Century explores what it means to believe and live out the Christian faith in our time and attracts many Christians throughout the United States as its audience.

            The Christian Century Editors argue that the government should step in to raise the minimum wage, especially for franchise owners, because $7.25 an hour is not enough to live off of. The Editors point out that fast food workers deserve $15 an hour which is more than twice the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour they currently receive. They believe that fast food chains are highly profitable and can afford to raise employee wages, but cannot do it independently because that would make the franchise raise the competitive wage for the franchise next door resulting in an industry-wide strike. The Christian Century Editors state that “people shouldn’t have to work multiple jobs to have their basic needs met.” They conclude with explaining that a wage increase would benefit everyone from working poor to high class and it would take the pressure off of welfare programs thus taxpayers wouldn’t pay to feed and house the poor.

            The Christian Century Editors give influential reasoning on why they think the minimum wage should be raised. However, if the minimum wage were to rise to an extremely high $15 dollars an hour what would that do to the middle class when it comes to the rise of consumer goods? The price of goods would have to increase in order to balance out the hefty pay raise of minimum wage employees. The minimum wage is set for a reason: it gives unskilled workers such as high school and college students a chance to earn money until they build their skill set to take on a more lucrative job.