Minimum Wage - Less Than Minimum Outrage
Where IS the public outrage that Congress is debating rasing the federal miniumum wage from $5.15 to $7.75 per hour? I spent more than a couple of summers doing maximum work for minimum wage, and it helped me buy books and such at college. In no way would it have paid for college itself. Parents & loans have made that happen.
Yet, what we're asking, as a society, is for people who work these jobs as their main source of income, day in and day out, to support themselves on $5.15/hour. Have you ever done the math? $5.15/hour x 40 hours a week = less than $10,000 a year, which is about the poverty level of one. (Poverty level for a family of 4 is $20,000.)
Yup, what we're saying to our fellow Americans is that if you have a minimum wage job, we're ok with you being poor. If you don't want to be poor, don't look to us to help raise that level, add more jobs.
And what jobs are these? I'm making a pretty good income. Unlike my minimum wage jobs, which involved constant physical labor (often unpleasant), my good income job is in a comfortable office, with all the amenities. Think about it. The people out there working those minimum wage jobs are not only working for little, they're physically working a lot harder than most of the rest of us. And our solution to them is to add a second job? Sure, why be worn out by one job when you could be wiped out by two.
Those of us who worked minimum wage for summers or to supplement our climb through colleges and entry level jobs owe it to our fellow Americans to remember those jobs. And ask ourselves why what we worked so hard to get out of is something we're apparently ok with condeming millions of people to stay in.
Yet, what we're asking, as a society, is for people who work these jobs as their main source of income, day in and day out, to support themselves on $5.15/hour. Have you ever done the math? $5.15/hour x 40 hours a week = less than $10,000 a year, which is about the poverty level of one. (Poverty level for a family of 4 is $20,000.)
Yup, what we're saying to our fellow Americans is that if you have a minimum wage job, we're ok with you being poor. If you don't want to be poor, don't look to us to help raise that level, add more jobs.
And what jobs are these? I'm making a pretty good income. Unlike my minimum wage jobs, which involved constant physical labor (often unpleasant), my good income job is in a comfortable office, with all the amenities. Think about it. The people out there working those minimum wage jobs are not only working for little, they're physically working a lot harder than most of the rest of us. And our solution to them is to add a second job? Sure, why be worn out by one job when you could be wiped out by two.
Those of us who worked minimum wage for summers or to supplement our climb through colleges and entry level jobs owe it to our fellow Americans to remember those jobs. And ask ourselves why what we worked so hard to get out of is something we're apparently ok with condeming millions of people to stay in.
posted by Anonymous at 6:45 PM
1 Comments:
Obviously, those minimum wage workers have to do a better job in political contributions to get the legislators on their side. It's pay to play, right? I'm not talking about a ton of dough... just a couple hundred bucks to each Congressman. You know, a week's pay.
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