This may surprise you, but I really don’t have a problem with participation awards, especially for kids. It does no harm to recognize a kid for “just showing up.”
However––that participation trophy shouldn’t be 3 feet high and it shouldn’t be the same as the champion’s.
If you want to cultivate a certain behavior, reward it. The fundamental skill that we need to cultivate in kids is, in fact, showing up. We can build from there.
If you want kids to “show up,” then reward them. Nothing wrong with that. If a kid makes it through a tough season of practice and games, by all means give them a participation medal.
Save the 3 foot trophy for the champions. It’s perfectly appropriate to recognize exceptional performance with an exceptional award.
If you have an issue with that, remember that a kid can work hard and still end up on a losing team. Your kid’s championship potential is subject to many conditions outside his or her control including where you live, who the coach happens to be and whether or not their team drafted the biggest kid in the league.
At the same time, a kid on a championship squad might receive a trophy as big as he is just for riding the bench. None of this is fair, but life itself isn’t always fair. That’s the greater lesson.
We actually have quite the opposite problem and it doesn’t end at Little League or high school graduation. We too often tolerate, condone and at times even reward bad behavior. We’re afraid to stand against egregious acts for fear of retaliation and political correctness has stifled constructive criticism and debate.
In the workplace this unintended negative reinforcement takes the form of giving a promotion to the person who never rocks the boat. We give raises for time served regardless of production and we often condemn meritocratic pay systems as being somehow unfair. We keep problem employees in place to avoid protracted legal challenges.
As a society we’re pressing for ever higher levels of minimum wage. Isn’t this the ultimate “participation trophy?” Many people believe that every adult should earn a “living wage” just for showing up.
Give the kids the participation awards. Train them to show up––and to keep showing up even when it’s tough.
When they win, give ‘em the big trophy. Teach them that hard work can earn greater rewards––and that it’s not just the starters that make a successful team.
Draw the line at adulthood. If you’ve been taught these values, you should now realize that showing up is the bare minimum. Minimum effort produces minimum rewards. If you want a shot at the big trophy, you’ve got to put in a big effort.
And you’ve got to accept the fact that no matter how much you deserve to win, sometimes you’re going to lose.
The participation award for grownups is life itself. No matter what your current circumstances and conditions, you can usually find someone worse off than yourself. No matter how bad it is right now, if you’re vertical and mobile you can usually do something to change it.
For kids, lets train them to show up. Let’s train them that if they work hard, and they get some breaks, that they may enjoy greater rewards.
Let’s also train them not to be afraid of taking intelligent risks. Let’s teach them to be courageous and confident. Let’s train them to keep showing up even when things aren’t going their way.
When they show up, give them the participation award––
But never deny the champions their trophy.
Picture of trophy courtesy of Pixtawan and FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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Think Like A Black Belt: The Blog! 
Minimum wage is not a “participation trophy” and working for it isn’t “showing up.” Minimum wage has not kept track with cost of living since the Reagan administration. The treatment of minimum wage here makes it sound like someone’s NOT earning it. Strangely elitist . . . something to re-think, in my opinion.
Not elitist in the least. Simply practical.
I will specify that my most vigorous opposition to minimum wage is on the federal level. It’s ridiculous and if you will, elitist to attempt a top-down policy that can cover the diverse market conditions across the U.S. Even at it’s current level, the federal minimum wage puts tremendous pressure on some areas of the country where employers simply cannot pay even the federal minimum for menial jobs.
The minimum wage is cited by Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman and several other noted economists as one of the most counter-productive policies in regard to employment and upward mobility. With minimum wage, it is not practical to hire low-skilled workers at competitive rates that give them the work experience and on the job skills training that propel them to higher earnings. Sowell’s research shows that before minimum wage, for example, the unemployment rate among urban black youths was near 4%. Today it exceeds 40% in many areas.
Next is the fact that most minimum wage workers will earn more than minimum, in most cases far more, in less than 4 years. Why? Minimum wage was not intended to be a “living” wage––it was intended as a base to prevent employers from exploiting workers in menial jobs as they developed the skills they needed to advance.
From my article “Minimum Wage is NOT Enough to Live On”:
“Despite how it might appear on the nightly news, only about 5% of all hourly workers and 3% of all workers employed in the U.S. earn minimum wage or less. Yes- in certain jobs the minimum is not even the minimum.
“If you’re currently working for minimum wage, there’s a very good chance that you’re single, under 25 working part time and still part of a family that makes more than $66,000 a year.
“There’s also a very good chance that you’re a student. 62% of all minimum wage workers are enrolled in high school, college or vocational training.”
The current political emphasis on minimum wage is exactly that––political. Very few people are trying to raise a family on minimum wage, and of those who do, over 80% are single parents of multiple children, many of whom do not have a high school diploma. Even so, that number is even a fraction of the 5% of hourly workers who make minimum.
As a political tactic, the minimum wage controversy is often a waste of time. Why? Because in most states, and I debated this vigorously in Maine, the proposed minimums are still less than the market value of labor! Using Maine as example, the fight was over raising the minimum at the time to about $8.00 an hour. Many of us engaged in the debate asked sponsors of the legislation where they were hiding this pool of laborers willing to work for $8.00. Most of us found it difficult to find even marginal employees at $10.00 or more––especially as the state was subsidizing unemployed persons and artificially competing with low-cost labor by making the benefits of state assistance comparable to $15.00 an hour or higher.
I should also state that very few of us had any issues with providing, through the state, reasonable assistance and safety net programs. So why then do we battle so hard against the minimum?
First of all, because it’s an arbitrary figure, particularly on the federal level. As such it’s subject to the whims of Congress or state legislators who seldom respect the input of business people, especially small time operators that have to live with the established minimum.
Next is because it’s an exercise in futility. You simply cannot control the price of labor without regulating and/or subsidizing the price of output production. You see the effects now as the fast food industry rapidly automates to offset the increase cost of labor. The net effect is they are replacing workers with devices. This is an important industry to watch not only because of its high profile regarding wages right now, but also because they are the largest employer of minimum wage workers.
Finally––it simply doesn’t work. Controlling the cost of labor is a socialistic idea that has never succeeded. In the rare cases of alleged success cited by advocates of high minimums, particular of “living wage” standards, wages are highly subsidized by the government. Greece is the most recent example and its collapse is typical of the inevitable cycle. You simply cannot subsidize labor indefinitely when the value of market production cannot sustain that cost on its own.
Personally, my issue with minimum wage is that people should not settle for minimum. The answer is not in setting an arbitrary standard which the market cannot sustain––it is in providing the training and opportunity to develop skills that represent a higher value and thereby command a higher wage. There also needs to be societal change in that in any relatively free market, you will increase the supply of whatever you subsidize. For years we have subsidized the production of children in single parent families and subsidized those who choose to enter adulthood without a high school diploma.
Since my emphasis is on helping people realize their true potential, I spend my time with many people who made poor choices which landed them in the minimum wage cycle or blasted them completely out of the wage earning category. I see these people excel, given the encouragement and guidance they need––and of course provided they’re willing to make a change.
So––elitist? Hardly.
Just practical.
I seem to have tapped into a favorite topic of yours, based on the word count! My problem with low wages is that the low wage often goes along with difficult work and terrible hours. The result: the employee gets exhausted mentally & physically and quits, never getting the training & experience needed to find a better job.
I tried jobs in Florida: at the Public Defender’s Office in Pasco County, I was paid $8.80 an hour to advise 276 clients (many of whom had more than one case against them). Waist deep in paper. Another example: my janitor gig. That was at $8.00. I was supposed to clean restrooms using chemicals that my boss wouldn’t get near. I got up, put on a uniform, drove to work, worked 6-9am, earned $24, then had to punch out. The joke was on me.
I know I will not convince you re: minimum, so I retreat. However, my lips curl when it’s suggested that people who are working low-wage jobs don’t deserve more. Some, or even many of them, do.
I understand your frustration––completely. However, what you’re really struggling with are prevailing market conditions.
You could justifiably argue that that your role in the public defender’s office was worth more to society than $8.00. The problem is that the market only valued that job at that rate––in other words, it would be difficult to convince your employer that your job was worth more.
That example is further complicated by the fact that it was a public sector job. In that instance, you could exert political pressure to demand that public workers be paid a certain minimum. In this example, you bring your case to the voter, who ultimately holds the power of the purse in this case.
I’m assuming the second example is from the private sector––if not, the case still goes to the public.
In the private sector, the market value is set by two simple conditions––the production value of the task and the availability of willing labor to fulfill that task. This is why computer programmers and code writers are now struggling at near minimum wage levels––there are just too many high-quality laborers available in that pool.
My contention is not that workers don’t “deserve” a certain level of pay. The concept of deserving really isn’t part of the equation––not in a relatively free market.
The problem is that once a central authority regulates the price of labor, freedom is eroded.
A contrasting example can be found in countries with high levels of entitlements such as the oil rich Scandinavian nations. In many of those areas, janitors and low-skill tradesmen are earning top wages––there are simply not enough people willing to perform those jobs when they can make a living without working.
The reason I’m so passionate about this issue is because I’ve committed much of my work to helping people excel––not settle for “minimum” at any level.
If mopping floors or cooking hamburgers is fulfilling and satisfying––then I have nothing but respect for those who want to do that work. I’ve done it myself and I’d do it again.
My focus is on helping people increase their value and expand their capabilities––not settle for minimum, no matter what that minimum might be. (Unless, as I said, they choose to.)
My problem is with those who demand a “living wage” for jobs that were not intended to provide a living and which simply do not support themselves in regard to production value.
I’ll give an example from a debate I had with a legislator in Maine:
I argued that I could not hire certain part-time employees to do menial tasks because the value was not there. The example we debated was cleaning the restroom.
I was asked if I knew the value of cleaning my restroom. I said yes––exactly. It was worth $2.00 an hour.
When I was challenged to justify that, I said that it took about 5 minutes, or roughly a tenth of an hour to clean the restroom. Since I had no other tasks that would keep an additional employee busy, that’s all the need I had.
The only employee I had at the time was a part-time instructor being paid about $20 an hour. Since that instructor could clean the restroom in 5 minutes, the value was about $2.00. Since the minimum unit of time allocated to minimum wage was an hour, the value to me was $2.00 to complete that task.
That may seem like a strained example to the average American, but that is exactly what happens in countries with tight wage controls. People are paid to do menial task at an inflated wage relative to production value. The worker is paid to be on the job for a specified amount of time, in many cases a full work week, and the production gap is covered, usually by government subsidies to the employer or by directly nationalizing the industry.
This happened in the Soviet Union, in Communist China and most recently in Greece. The system is simply unsustainable.
The flip side is that if I truly own my own life and labor as Locke contended, then only I can establish the value of my time.
For example, if I needed or wanted the $2.00 for cleaning the restroom, I could negotiate that rate. If I wanted to increase my value I would negotiate based on quality or I would clean several restrooms in that hour to increase my revenue.
Because the government sets a minimum, this negotiation is not possible. This becomes crucial when menial or low-skill jobs can provide a point of entry and work experience to those entering the market.
Thomas Sowell makes this point in a compelling fashion by drawing a parallel to explosive unemployment rates in conjunction with minimum wage and closed shop policies. He approaches this effect rationally and dispassionately: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb9zJJVdUd8
What is the solution, ultimately?
We can mandate a minimum “living wage.” Alternately, we can simply allocate a base stipend for every citizen––Friedman proposed this in the form of the “negative income tax.” In that model, every citizen starts with a stipend equal to a determined living base. This would preserve freedom of choice for the individual.
Or, we can continue to impose a federal “minimum” on the private sector. At some point, you cannot sustain that minimum without also regulating the supply side––again, a Chinese style mandate whereby employers would be required to employ X number of people regardless of need.
The famous example of the problems associated with this escalation is that of, I believe it was Milton Friedman, when he toured China. He witnesses a huge dam project where excavation was largely undertaken with human labor.
Of course the problem was that these people were, in many cases, forced to perform the work to fulfill production quotas. Friedman asked why they didn’t use heavy equipment instead of the forced labor.
The hosts remarked that in this system, they employed many more people. Nobody was starving because there was plenty of work.
Friedman then asked why then, instead of shovels and barrows, didn’t they use spoons? That would employ many more!
Again that might sound extreme, but it serves to show both the mindset of the central planner and the fact that in order to assure the “minimum” wage––the production and labor supply side had to, by necessity, also be managed. Hence the forced labor and in this case, horrible and dangerous working conditions.
This is a complex issue and I don’t have the systemic answers.
What I do know it that in the remainder of my lifetime, we’re not likely to solve the systemic issues. Each of us, however, as individuals, can choose to expand our value and increase, if we wish, our earning power––at least to some degree…
…as long as we don’t settle for “minimum!”
Best Thoughts and Thank You for the stimulating debate!