[Vision2020] Who earns minimum wage?

[Joan Opyr]

I wouldn't call Gary's assessment of who earns minimum wage cold, nor yet 
cauld.  I'd call it ill-informed.  This is the sort of hard data you can 
dredge up at Heritage.org.  Taken out of its real human context, you wind 
up with a list of figures that sound okay, perhaps even reasonable, but if 
you get off the computer and out the front door and meet a few minimum-
wage earners, you might see the point in lifting this base-line.  

Okay, fifty-some percent of those earning minimum wage are not the sole 
bread-winners in their family.  Those are the cold hard facts.  Say there 
are two people in a household working full-time and both earning minimum 
wage.  Your friend, Wal-Mart, keeps thousands of employees just below full-
time to avoid paying benefits, and the corporation complains bitterly that 
too many employees are staying with the company too long and thus earning 
a few bucks above minimum.  How do we get rid of those ambitious 
bastards?  But that's another post. 

Our two minimum wage earners together make $21,506 per year for eighty 
hours combined work per week.  Tell me: how do you advance in the 
workplace with only a high school diploma or a GED?  You go to college or 
trade school.  Great idea!  And how will you pay for that?  How will you 
get in?  Do you know how to apply?  There's ever greater demand for 
proportionally fewer slots.  Strike one.  Now imagine that you grew up 
poor.  College was never an option.  But you're clever.  You've read a few 
Horatio Alger American success stories, so you screw up your courage and 
apply.  Did you get in?  Lucky you.  Now, while you attend your classes, 
you continue to pay the rent, hold down your full-time job, and hope you 
don't get sick or need a root canal because you have no health care.  
Strike two.

You finished college.  No illnesses; no catastrophes.  Your college loans 
total $40,000 and you've racked up another $10,000 on those easy-to-get  
credit cards.  You didn't major in engineering; math is not your strong 
suit.  Besides, you wanted to be a school teacher, and so you majored in 
education.  You spend three years subbing while you look for a job.  You 
earn more than you used to make, but it doesn't feel like all that much 
because your student loan payments and that damned credit card bill take a 
great fat whack out of your paycheck.  And, lo!  Wage increases are no 
longer keeping up with the rate of inflation.  Haven't been for some 
time.  Gas is three bucks a gallon.  You have to drive from Moscow to 
Genesee (or vice-versa) to sub.  Hard times.

Who primarily works for minimum wage?  Teenagers, yes; retired people 
looking to earn a few extra bucks; and women with children, especially 
women of color.  What's the toll on society of $5.15 an hour?  People 
working for minimum wage are obliged to rely on public assistance.  
Medicaid, school lunch programs, subsidized housing, subsidized 
childcare.  What costs the state more, a low minimum wage or a solid 
living wage?  Which is richer, Washington, where the minimum wage is $7.65 
an hour, or Idaho, where it's $5.15?

Don't talk to me about working two and three jobs like grandpappy did in 
the glorious 1950s.  I've worked three and sometimes four jobs, and I 
don't wish it on another living soul.  It makes you sick; it wears you 
out; it eats your soul.  When I ask Jerry Brady about Idaho and a living 
wage, I'll certainly pass on Gary's kind thoughts about bootstrapping it 
or eating cat food or whatever it is he thinks Mr. and Mrs. 
NotGaryCrabtree ought to do, and I'll be interested to hear what he has to 
say.  Very interested indeed.

I only wish I could ask Butch Otter the same question.

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.joanopyr.com



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