In addition to the economics, think of what the minimum wage says ethically. It tells low-skilled workers that they are not allowed to work. Imagine a teenage boy who because of his lack of skills and work experience can only produce $6/hr. of value for an employer. Even the most kind-hearted folks can’t afford to pay someone $9/hr. to produce only $6 of value. That’s not financially sustainable. But, if someone could hire him at the $6 rate, he may eventually learn valuable skills that would make him a better, more productive employee. It is important for young people and poor people to have a chance to work at a low paying job in order to build the skills and experiences necessary to get a better one. The minimum wage says: you’re not a very effective worker, so we’re not going to let you work at all.

According to the BLS, the teen unemployment rate is currently 23.4 percent. Shouldn’t we make it easier for them to work, not harder? Labor, in all spheres of life, whether “economically productive” or not, is dignified and dignifying to the worker. As Pope John Paul II wrote in Laborem Exercens, through work man “achieves fulfillment as a human being.” As a society, we should seek to affirm the goodness of honest work.

As Nathaniel Peters observed, summarizing a recent editorial from Arthur Brooks, conservatives must not only care about those in need, they must “make the public argument that what they believe and work for is good for the poor.” If we are going to be economic conservatives, we should be so because it is humane. To be humane ascribes dignity to man and ultimately to the creator whose image man bears. Efficient economic organization is not an end in itself. What is good must be the goal.

Others have been sounding a similar note on the minimum wage. A recent Wall Street Journal editorial concludes “It’d be nice to think that some Republicans, even one, would make the moral case that the minimum wage hurts the poorest workers.”

Laborem Exercens provides a beautiful and jarringly realistic assessment of work. After noting both the creation mandate to “subdue the earth” and the toil and hardship we encounter because of the fall of man, Pope John Paul II wrote,

And yet, in spite of all this toil—perhaps, in a sense, because of it—work is a good thing for man. Even though it bears the mark of a bonum arduum, in the terminology of Saint Thomas, this does not take away the fact that, as such, it is a good thing for man. It is not only good in the sense that it is useful or something to enjoy; it is also good as being something worthy, that is to say, something that corresponds to man’s dignity, that expresses this dignity and increases it. If one wishes to define more clearly the ethical meaning of work, it is this truth that one must particularly keep in mind. Work is a good thing for man—a good thing for his humanity—because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfilment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes ‘more a human being’.

Writing in the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine, Retired Navy Captain Kevin Eyer explains how sex integration has wasted the Navy’s resources and made it less combat-ready:

Casual observers—civilians and those who have never served in a fully integrated combat unit—seem convinced that men and women can, and are, serving together with a cheerful disregard for one another’s gender. This is ridiculous. Physical interaction is the natural and inevitable result of male/female contact and it always will be. Look at the sheer mass of evidence: Record numbers of commanding officers, executive officers, and command master chiefs are being sacked for personal misconduct. If they who have so very much to lose aren’t being good, how can we expect our sailors to behave?

The truth is that men and women are having sex with one another, regularly, and in blatant disregard of regulations. Cavorting with the foreign populace has been replaced by cavorting with shipmates. They are more or less discreet, depending upon the unit, but you would have to be blind not to see that it is happening, and happening a lot. Put healthy young men and women together in isolation and under stress for long periods of time and they will interact.

The Navy already knows that sexual activity among sailors is not beneficial. That is why they do not allow it. As Eyer puts it, “sexual misconduct and fraternization are clearly forbidden by Navy regulation, and this is based in the idea that intramural sex degrades the cohesion of combat units.”

To name a few of several problems that could arise from sex among service members we could note: interpersonal conflict because of sexual jealousy, the ubiquitous lack of sexual discipline spilling over into other areas, and pregnancy requiring women to be sent home early. As Eyer later puts it, we “might sensibly believe that endemic fraternization is not only contrary to good order and discipline, but fundamentally tears at unit cohesion.”

Eyer is even more clear about how the goal of more complete integration has a significant financial cost. Female officers have twice the attrition rate of male officers and so the heavy investment cost to train and mentor them has less long-term payoff.

Even if military readiness weren’t reduced we must ask about the spiritual toll of having a military like this. Is this a good way to discipline and inculcate our young people in the defense of our country? Is this the kind of character that will lead to future lives of honor and fidelity (or even present lives of courage and valor)? What will be the fruit of the habit of winking at rules about sexual behavior when those rules have been established for the good of the community?

If Eyer’s account is even close to accurate, our navy has made peace with sexual degradation. Before male-female integration, that degradation was lived out primarily off the ship. Now it has been brought on. Shouldn’t we be a little more concerned about the resulting spiritual, moral, physical, and psychological harm?

In order to maintain the overall size of the population, each woman must have, on average, 2.1 children. Two children replace the two parents and then a few more need to be born to make up for untimely deaths and infertility. The CDC report tells us that the Total Fertility Rate for 2011 was 1.89, well off the replacement pace. The United States simply is not reproducing itself. If this trend continues, then apart from immigration there will be fewer US citizens here 100 years from now than there are today. Regardless of what kind of environment, wealth, culture, or political institutions we leave behind, we’re leaving it to fewer and fewer of us.

Teen births have declined, which is good, but so did births to twentysomethings, which is bad (a 1 percent decrease for 25-29 year-olds and 3 percent decrease for 20-24 year-olds). Births to 40-44 year-old mothers increased. Not only are we having fewer children, we’re having them at older ages.

The biological picture is unhappy, but the social one remains perhaps the most alarming. Our children are being born into dysfunctional homes. Over 40% of births were to unmarried women (a number 0.1 percent better than last year). This means that two out of five American children are starting their lives without a married mom and dad. If we anticipate that many of the married parents will eventually get divorced, we see that well over half of the next generation will come from a broken home. The normal and the abnormal are trading places.

There are a few numbers to be happy about: The preterm birth rate declined slightly and the cesarean delivery rate stopped increasing. But the overall picture is not one of health, but of decline.

Presidential debates are important, but by the most basic measure of societal well-being we are in trouble. And it is a kind of trouble that no tax break or health insurance reform is going to change. As a nation we have some soul-searching to do.

David Talcott an assistant professor of philosophy at the King’s College (NY).