On Easter Day, the 12th April 2020, Pope Francis sent a message to ‘our brothers and sisters in social movements and organizations’, during which he said this: 

… I know that you have been excluded from the benefits of globalization. You do not enjoy the superficial pleasures that anesthetize so many consciences, yet you always suffer from the harm they produce. The ills that afflict everyone hit you twice as hard. Many of you live from day to day, without any type of legal guarantee to protect you. Street vendors, recyclers, carnies, small farmers, construction workers, dressmakers, the different kinds of caregivers: you who are informal, working on your own or in the grassroots economy, you have no steady income to get you through this hard time … and the lockdowns are becoming unbearable. This may be the time to consider a universal basic wage which would acknowledge and dignify the noble, essential tasks you carry out. It would ensure and concretely achieve the ideal, at once so human and so Christian, of no worker without rights. …

 

 

Fraternally,  Francis
Vatican City, Easter Sunday, 12 April 2020

A question: Was he referring to a national or global statutory minimum wage, or was he referring to Basic Income? Comment would be welcome.

To read the full text of the Pope’s message, click here.

 

 

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