?onditions for low-wage workers today reflect a broader trend that society is becoming increasingly unequal,?he says. People in bad jobs are just treated worse than they were a generation ago.?

A Question Of Economics

While few studies have been conducted examining the effects of implementing a living wage, among those at Harvard, there remains a fundamental disagreement about the economic principles that justify?r nullify?he merits of a living wage.

Economists who argue against a living wage say that wages should be set according to productivity, and any form of governmental or institutional interference would result in a ?istortion in the market,?according to Pollin.

This argument places trust in the market to set fair wages.

The importance of the marketplace in determining wages was the University? and the first committee? main argument against imposing a living wage, Price says.

The decision not to adopt a living wage had nothing to do with potential cost, she says, but instead with an ideological disagreement about the merits and implications of a wage floor.

?he University policy for how we set wages is to set them either through face-to-face bargaining at the bargaining table or to base them on what the market is paying for similar jobs,?Price says. ?t? market-based rather than need-based.?But Pollin argues that the marketplace cannot be relied upon to set fair wages. The economy is 66 percent more productive than it was in 1968, he says, but the minimum wage has dropped in a relative sense. People are being paid less and less for doing work, he notes.

While living wage supporters and detractors square off against each other, other economists identify a middle ground.

Princeton Professor of Economics Elizabeth Bogan says though she has pushed for higher wages for Princeton employees, she is quite vehement in her dislike for the living wage.

The term is simply ?evoid of intellectual content,?and ?arries a bunch of emotional baggage,?she says.

Bogan says she objects on economic grounds to state or national laws that dictate a living wage that employers must pay.

Instead, she justifies raising wages to what is called an ?fficiency wage.?While the push to raise wages has moral overtones, Bogan says it is also valuable economically.