Price Signals

There’s a local story circulating through the press about increasing the daily per diem for jury participation. Blois Olson writes an informative daily newsletter, Fluence Media, and here is his explanation:

The daily rate is too low to be competitive against even the minimal paid job, so it’s difficult to follow the logic that more money would be enough of an impact to draw in this segment of the population. After all, the others who show up aren’t happy to be there either. Some have delayed more than once to avoid the inconvenience to their daily lives.

So why do people show? Somewhere along the way, people who are meaningful to them impose it as a duty to support an existing system. You have duties to your family, for instance, like visiting the elderly in care homes. You have duties to a level of civic decency in your neighborhoods, like not playing your Elton John albums at full volume while lounging on your deck. You have duties to your workmates and so on. You give to generate a pool of goodwill which eventually comes back around.

Jury duty meets an even higher standard for some, as they are live participants in a system that affects their lives. Perhaps that is why they shy away from it. They don’t want to be asked uncomfortable questions. Yet, it is through participation that their input is recorded. Showing up is how the game works, and that is the message, not pricing, that needs to be sent out.