Americans are a contentious people. We argue, bicker, squabble and disagree about just about everything. The number of things upon which we all agree seems to be small and shrinking, but I’m betting that most people will agree with the following statement:
A person who works forty hours per week in honest employment deserves to earn enough money to meet the basic expenses of life.
That sentiment has widespread support among Americans. One recent poll found that 97% of adults agree that “an honest day’s work deserves an honest day’s pay,” yet the sad fact is that there are millions of American workers earning minimum wage who cannot afford even the most modest apartment rent and cannot put adequate food on the table to feed themselves, much less children in their care. Simply put, this is wrong and our national conscience needs to set things right.
Currently, the federal minimum wage level is $7.25 per hour. A full-time minimum wage worker brings home approximately $925 per month after taxes and payroll deductions. No one can live independently on so little.
The average cost of a modest one bedroom apartment in Nashville is $652 per month. Electricity and water add another $100 to this amount. For a minimum wage worker this leaves only $5.83 per day for food, clothing, transportation, health insurance, child care and everything else. Impossible.
These economic realities have forced millions of workers into alternative living arrangements, but even apartment/house sharing solutions (not the first choice for raising children!) are limited by restrictive housing codes. In Nashville, for example, the housing code prohibits more than 3 unrelated adults from occupying a house or apartment—a prescription for homelessness among minimum wage workers.
There is but a single factor contributing to this sad state of affairs—unbounded greed. One need only realize that 23.5% of the total national income is paid to the wealthiest 1% of our citizens to conclude that there is a simple solution to this desperate problem. One need only survey the field of heavyweight contenders against raising the minimum wage to realize that money, not human compassion, is carrying the day in the living wage debate.
Just as the uber-rich spent fortunes to persuade the uninformed that health care reform meant death panels and out of control taxation, they are now throwing their resources behind the ludicrous proposition that lowering the minimum wage will create jobs and put more money in workers’ pockets. Even logic stood on its head can be made to seem upright by the application of sufficient money and spin. The opposition has plenty of both. (See Fox News video at right–>)
The fight is not lost and the outcome is not inevitable. Raising the minimum wage is a winnable battle with Democrats currently controlling both houses of Congress. However, just as with health care reform, your elected officials need incentive to do what’s right. They need the pressure of impassioned public opinion to spur them to action.
Please join the effort to raise the federal minimum wage to $10 per hour in 2010. Get the shirt. Help the people. Help raise awareness of this serious issue. Help your representatives to do the right thing. There should be no such thing in America as the “working poor.”
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Minimum wage workers perform the hardest and nastiest jobs in the country and should at least be given the dignity of a living wage. People who work forty hours every week should be entitled to a decent place to live and enough to eat, and all the other things that are needed to have a decent life in this country. This is a cause that has been neglected way too long.
I’m 100% in agreement with Perkerson Park’s Mary Ann on this blog. In my mind there is no logical rationalization that any working person in America should be paid substandard wages. Employers who show their greed and dog-eat-dog attitudes by paying their employees as little as possible while enjoying reasonable profit margins should be ashamed of themselves. I don’t think there is such a thing as a “values system measuring tool”, but if there is (or if there were to be) one I’d bet a large majority of “successful” men and women would rate pretty far down on the scale. By the way, I have ordered the shirt and think it is a great way to help spread awareness of the need for living wages for all of our workers – American as well as non-American. Thanks for helping me accept more social resonsibility by wearing this shirt. I look forward to wearing it and encouraging people to think more about this issue.
Mary Ann is 100% correct in all she wrote here! So prophetic, in the Biblical sense of the word! (That is, not “fortune-telling” or “e.s.p. about the future” but rather proclaiming THE TRUTH, whether about past, present or future situations.)
I watched both videos. Re Fox: I’d be ready to buy arguments for lowering minimum wage if they were backed up by data from real economists BUT what about all the federal money that went to corporate executives in the bail-outs? What about super-salaries that these CEOs give themselves? THAT’s where the company savings should begin, NOT with lowering a minimum wage that doesn’t cover the cost of living for an honest 40-hr-wk worker!
The other video (top one) tore my heart, Mary Ann. Texas A&M alone would make me homesick for the Lone Star State. But listening to “Amanda”, “Manuel” & Diego” tell their stories was what grabbed me. It was like hearing again the dear folks I rubbed elbows with in San Antonio. I didn’t need the translations at bottom of screen, of course, to understand these three. In fact, I longed to be able to reach thru the screen somehow & give each one un abrazo de entendimiento y sosidaridad (an understanding hug of solidarity). When I lived in Texas, thru books read for a book club & other reading I was quite familiar with the Anglo stereotype of chicanos as “lazy” and “shiftless” and knew from personal acquaintance with some of them and the writings of others, how untrue the stereotype is!
Those who do the “menial” jobs (janitorial, housekeeping, service, etc.) tend to be the hardest workers. And the most appropriate recognition for such hard work is not a plaque for “employee of the year” like Manuel received, but rather a pay raise! You used to see the yearning for a pay raise as a repeated theme in the comic strips. Not any longer. Do you suppose the uber-rich have managed to silence (i.e, censor) the cartoonists?