Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, May 24, 1993                   TAG: 9305240255
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: TIMOTHY M. BARRETT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WOMEN CAN HELP THE ECONOMY BY GIVING UP THEIR JOBS - TO MEN

The law of supply and demand for labor states that in any situation, when the supply of workers seeking work exceeds the demand for workers, wages will go down. Wages will fall, in fact, until they are sufficiently low to discourage enough people from seeking a particular job and/or, because of lower wages, employers are able to hire more people and soak up the excess supply. This law leads to high unemployment and low wages that result from women entering the workforce en masse.

Before women entered the work force in their current numbers, an unemployment rate of 3 to 4 percent was considered outrageously high. In fact, it was the "high" unemployment rate of just over 4 percent that caused former President Richard Nixon to impose draconian price controls. Today, it is routine for the unemployment rate to be around 6 percent or 7 percent without the government so much as blinking an eye - President Clinton's recently defeated pork package notwithstanding. Also, real wages have fallen between the early '70s and early '90s, despite the enormous income gains seen by every income group due to former President Reagan's economic policies of the '80s. These facts, although far from conclusive, should give us pause and cause us to reassess the "necessity," which exists in Ms. Beck's mind, of women working outside the home.

She finds justification in women working so that families will be kept off welfare. By lowering wages, however, women have actually forced many families below the poverty line and onto the welfare rolls. Since it is precisely because these wages have fallen that woman are "required" to work to keep their families from the welfare abyss, the increased wages resulting from a female exodus from the work force would allow their husbands and fathers to earn enough money to keep their families afloat. Without her working, none of the following expenses would be incurred: day care, increased taxes due to higher tax bracket, a second car (payment, gas, insurance), clothes, eating out more often with business associates and clients, etc. Even if a woman can cover all of these expenses, her post-expense income will be too low, in fact, to justify letting someone else raise her children.

Given the unemployment rate, it is hard to accept Ms. Beck's assumption that if women left the work force in droves for their natural calling of motherhood, those jobs would remain unfilled by male workers, taxes would not be paid and the national debt would increase. Even semi-qualified men would take the vacated jobs at a higher rate of pay, because employers have to raise wages to attract the best people to fill those positions. In fact, not only would the deficit not increase, but it would actually decrease for both federal and state budgets. The obvious benefits to the budgets would be a reduction in unemployment and other types of welfare spending, and more revenue generated from the higher male wages. Unfortunately, while there are many other additional benefits to the federal and state budgets by women returning to their natural calling, the nation lacks the moral consensus or understanding to fully realize these benefits.

Nevertheless, if a woman truly wants to help reduce the deficit by increasing revenue, the last thing she should do is work. Rather, she should have as many children as possible to multiply her income (and tax-paying) potential. If a woman has 10 children and five are boys, she has over the span of 30 years multiplied her income potential by a factor of five. If 20 million women did this, there would be 100 million new taxpayers within one generation, 600 million within two and 3 billion within three. Obviously, justifying women in the work force on the basis of tax revenue is ludicrous.

Which brings us to the fact that is repeatedly admitted by Ms. Beck: "Women by biological design and genetically based emotions" are made to have and rear children. Given her acceptance of this facet of natural law, I find her refusal to write a "polemic" about why women should give up their jobs very curious. Instead of demanding that women return home to care for the next generation of citizens as the only hope for our nation, she demands that the work force change in such a way to make women ignore their natural emotions toward their children.

I have a better idea. Come home, ladies, and allow your husbands and fathers to be the providers, even if that means giving up things. Show your children that you value them more than the dollar and teach them moral values. I can guarantee that when your children rise up and call you blessed, you will forever forget about all of those lost paychecks.

Timothy M. Barrett of Dublin will be entering law school in the fall.