Torah Study > Chapter 3: Mishpat vs. Tzedek > Case Studies
Case Studies
The Cost of Living
An organization’s budget must be cut by 5% and the management
team is exploring ways to do so. Jobs and salaries will almost surely be
affected.
This organization almost awarded cost of living increases but has decided
it can’t do that for the year ahead. One person suggests that everyone be
given a 2% raise that year, half of the 4% standard federal-recommended
cost of living increase (COLA). That seems the right way to go—treating
everyone the same.
Another person said that is not fair: management will be the winners, for
2% of their salaries is much larger than 2% of maintenance staff and
secretary salaries. The person who proposed the 2% raise argued that
nonetheless, each household has its share of on-going expenses. That
is, those with larger incomes have lifestyles that incur larger expenses
and those with smaller incomes have lifestyles that accommodate lesser
expenses. A 2% increase in relation to each household is therefore a fair
and just way to go.
Opponents to this position argued that maintenance, blue collar and
secretarial staff often live much closer to the economic brink, often with
little savings. They have fewer discretionary expenses that can be cut, and
little capacity to get loans to tide them over. Therefore, the organization
should offer a full 4% cost of living increase for the lower-echelon staff
and a 2% increase for the higher. (Even with this formula, the total COLA
for the higher staff is 5 times as great as the COLA for the lower staff.)
As a group, outline the arguments on both sides and debate the issue.
• How do the concepts of tzedek and mishpat help us understand the
competing approaches to this issue?
• What do you think the organization should do?
• Is there a right answer to this? Is there a Jewish answer?
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Fairness in School Funding
In many states today, local schools are funded by local property taxes.
(That is, each home owner pays a tax based on the value of his or her
property. That money gets funneled back into the local school district.)
This means each household can choose the quality of education that the
children receive by choosing where to live. It also means that the more
prosperous the neighborhood, the better funded is its school. School districts
in wealthier neighborhoods often spend thousands of dollars more
per child than school districts in economically depressed neighborhoods.
Is this a fair system? Why or why not? Would you define “fairness”
differently if you lived in a wealthy neighborhood than if you lived in a
poor one?
In the past twenty-five years, at least 2/3 of the states in this country
have determined that this system is unfair, and have struggled to fix it.
One solution was to pool all the state’s property taxes in one pot and
dole out an equal amount of dollars per student throughout the state.
That sounds good because it makes everyone equal.
Is this mishpat, tzedek or neither?
Read the following paragraph:
"I am not convinced that spending the same amount on each child is the
fairest approach to school funding. The truth is that parents spend considerably
different amounts on their children’s education—whether in public
or private schools—depending on income. Providing the same amount
of state and local aid to the child of wealthy parents as to poor parents
simply exacerbates the gaps and ignores the fact that one child is likely
to have more unmet needs than the other. I am more in favor of providing
whatever level of funding is adequate for each child to meet his or
her needs and to attain high standards than I am to providing the same
amount to each child, rich or poor.”
(Mr. Michael Casserly of the Council of Great City Schools)
Is this mishpat, tzedek or neither?
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