The Rants of Issachar
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Wage Slaves:
It's a typical Saturday morning at my place in Langley. We've got some very good coffee and we're watching A&E's Investigative Reports: Wage Slaves: Not Getting By In America. Interesting and vaguely depressing.
Basically the show interviews a few economists and authors of books on poverty in America, but mostly unskilled workers in the US making $5 to $7 per hour. Supporting kids off that income in a city is extremely difficult to say the least. The economists point out that a high minimum wage simply increases unemployment. That's hardly a solution. Someone's making a terrible wage, so you take away the small income they have. Raising the minimum wage is an obvious and simple solution, but it brings up unintended consequences. Interestingly when it came to the welfare reform / minimum wage issue, the people interviewed were mostly the academics and advocates. I don't know if they chose not to interview the working poor on this issue, but they weren't the ones talking about this.
The job market in America has changed significantly. Low paying, unskilled service sector jobs have replaced higher skilled jobs. One place that has happened is in the food sector. The assembly line system came to the kitchen. It boosted production signficantly, and lowered costs, but it replaced skilled cooks with assembly style cooking. (Think fast food).
The other thing that happened is that housing went through the roof. Interestingly the definition of "poverty" in the US came from the 1950's. What they did was look at average expenses. At the time, roughly a third of income was spent on food. So they took a recommended food budget, multiplied it by three and called it the minimum. The catch is that while food expenses remained mostly stable since the 50's. Other costs, (notably housing) went through the roof. Normally when demand for something goes up, supply goes up. For some reason not explained, the housing market doesn't work that way according to the show.
Two people were interviewed repeatedly and their stories alone make the show worth watching.
The first was Ronald Rooney. He's working as an in-home care provider for the department of social services. He makes $6.75 per hour. Wear & tear on his vehicle, gas costs all come out of his pocket. He has a good family. He supports his wife, 3 kids and looks after his niece as well. He speaks simply, but has a very clear and dogged determination to keep working to support his wife and family. Good man. He never said he wanted a handout, he simply wants to support his family. When he said what would make his life a sucess, it was if he made enough to send his children to college. Not that if his children went to college, but that if he put them there. Everything he said showed a clear pride in his work. He said he had a checkered past, some past lawbreaking, but that he was on the straight and narrow now. There's no background of that, but it's definitely a success story.
Sandra Hurst in Alabama has two kids and works two jobs. One as a school cafeteria lady in the mornings and another in a day care. Her son also attends that day care. She's a single mother and there's no word on what happened to her husband, but the implication was that he left. She also took pride in her work and in working. She wasn't wanting a handout and said that she doesn't like people looking for handouts. She doesn't take the government help. She doesn't see why the government should pay for her. She spoke against people in her situation wearing name brands while complaining. At the same time, she was very honest about the problems she faces. Her daughter had just had a birthday, and the party had thrown her finances into a problem. That was $12 for the cake and $12 for a present. Not exactly crazy money to spend on an eight year old girl's birthday. Like Ronald Rooney, Sandra took pride in how she dealt with her situation.
Listening to these people reinforced the idea that work is the answer. There just has to be good work. There was a lot more to the show, and I'd really recommend it, but Ronald and Sandra were particularly telling.
Basically the show interviews a few economists and authors of books on poverty in America, but mostly unskilled workers in the US making $5 to $7 per hour. Supporting kids off that income in a city is extremely difficult to say the least. The economists point out that a high minimum wage simply increases unemployment. That's hardly a solution. Someone's making a terrible wage, so you take away the small income they have. Raising the minimum wage is an obvious and simple solution, but it brings up unintended consequences. Interestingly when it came to the welfare reform / minimum wage issue, the people interviewed were mostly the academics and advocates. I don't know if they chose not to interview the working poor on this issue, but they weren't the ones talking about this.
The job market in America has changed significantly. Low paying, unskilled service sector jobs have replaced higher skilled jobs. One place that has happened is in the food sector. The assembly line system came to the kitchen. It boosted production signficantly, and lowered costs, but it replaced skilled cooks with assembly style cooking. (Think fast food).
The other thing that happened is that housing went through the roof. Interestingly the definition of "poverty" in the US came from the 1950's. What they did was look at average expenses. At the time, roughly a third of income was spent on food. So they took a recommended food budget, multiplied it by three and called it the minimum. The catch is that while food expenses remained mostly stable since the 50's. Other costs, (notably housing) went through the roof. Normally when demand for something goes up, supply goes up. For some reason not explained, the housing market doesn't work that way according to the show.
Two people were interviewed repeatedly and their stories alone make the show worth watching.
The first was Ronald Rooney. He's working as an in-home care provider for the department of social services. He makes $6.75 per hour. Wear & tear on his vehicle, gas costs all come out of his pocket. He has a good family. He supports his wife, 3 kids and looks after his niece as well. He speaks simply, but has a very clear and dogged determination to keep working to support his wife and family. Good man. He never said he wanted a handout, he simply wants to support his family. When he said what would make his life a sucess, it was if he made enough to send his children to college. Not that if his children went to college, but that if he put them there. Everything he said showed a clear pride in his work. He said he had a checkered past, some past lawbreaking, but that he was on the straight and narrow now. There's no background of that, but it's definitely a success story.
Sandra Hurst in Alabama has two kids and works two jobs. One as a school cafeteria lady in the mornings and another in a day care. Her son also attends that day care. She's a single mother and there's no word on what happened to her husband, but the implication was that he left. She also took pride in her work and in working. She wasn't wanting a handout and said that she doesn't like people looking for handouts. She doesn't take the government help. She doesn't see why the government should pay for her. She spoke against people in her situation wearing name brands while complaining. At the same time, she was very honest about the problems she faces. Her daughter had just had a birthday, and the party had thrown her finances into a problem. That was $12 for the cake and $12 for a present. Not exactly crazy money to spend on an eight year old girl's birthday. Like Ronald Rooney, Sandra took pride in how she dealt with her situation.
Listening to these people reinforced the idea that work is the answer. There just has to be good work. There was a lot more to the show, and I'd really recommend it, but Ronald and Sandra were particularly telling.
12 Comments:
Posted by: 
SarahMorgan Spurlock did a series of cool docos called '30 Days', the first of which was about living on minimum wage for 30 days. He and his girlfriend participated, and lived in Columbus Ohio for 30 days on minimum wage in
minimum housing. In a word, they struggled to get by and finished up the 30 days horribly in debt.
Its a really good series, but was on some weird cable channel that nobody gets, but they are readily downloadable. I recommend checking it out.
SarahMorgan Spurlock did a series of cool docos called '30 Days', the first of which was about living on minimum wage for 30 days. He and his girlfriend participated, and lived in Columbus Ohio for 30 days on minimum wage inminimum housing. In a word, they struggled to get by and finished up the 30 days horribly in debt.
Its a really good series, but was on some weird cable channel that nobody gets, but they are readily downloadable. I recommend checking it out.
Posted by: zannebeePeople often feel inspired when they hear stories about some guy who grew up in the rural south in poverty, but was able to get a scholarship to a good college and ends up making a bajillion dollars running his own business or something. It's the American dream, right? However, for every one story like that, there are hundreds like the people that you mentioned. Something that a lot of people don't understand is that not everyone can "pull themselves up by their own boot straps". Many people work hard, but are not particularly bright or skilled at anything. And it's not that they are lazy or "looking for handouts". It's simply their lot in life, and yes, it's depressing. And there will always be a place for these people. Rich people need maids, chauffers, gardeners, etc. 7-11's need cashiers, McDonald's needs fry cooks.
I can tell you my story. I was an at home mother with two children when my ex-husband and I split up. I didn't have any marketable skills and I'd never graduated from college. I had to get a job, so I took one making $5 an hour working at an apartment complex as a leasing agent (this was about 10 years ago when minimum wage was about $4.25). They allowed me to live there for free for a few months to get on my feet, but then I had to start paying rent. Rent was $425 a month and the apartment was about 600 sq feet (It was very small). At $5 an hour, I took home about $800 a month. Minus $425, that left me with $375. Gasoline was about $25 a week (I worked on property, but I had to drive the kids to daycare) and I spent about $30 a week in groceries. That comes to about $230. That left me with about $145, or about $35 a week, for anything else we needed, like toilet paper or clothes (which I bought at the thrift store). However, in order to work, I needed to put the kids in daycare, which is very expensive. I don't recall exactly how much it cost me, but when school let out, it was in the neighborhood of about $250 a week. Now if you do the math, you can see that it would cost me more to pay for daycare than I even made. I couldn't count on my ex to pay child support because we were just going through our divorce and he was being extremely difficult to say the least.
So I decided that I could either not work and collect welfare, or work and get help from the governement to pay for daycare. Working two jobs wasn't really an option because then the kids would have been in day care even longer and I couldn't afford it, financially, or for the kids' sake, emotionally. I decided to go to the DES office and apply for help with paying for daycare. I ended up having to pay a co-payment of $25 a week, which if you recall from the previous math project, left me with about $10 a week for anything else. I was barely making it. I mean if the kids had to see the Doctor or my car broke down, I was screwed. I know well the problem finding enough money to pay for a little birthday party.
I ended up also applying for food stamps, which helped some. But I could see that it was going to be a pretty hard row to hoe and I didn't see how I could keep living that way. After about 6 months, I decided that my best option was to go back to college. So I got some grants and loans, and I went back to school. Once I graduated, I was able to get a better paying job. I still don't make tons of money and I have a fortune to pay off in student loans, but I am not in the hell hole that I was back then. And believe me, it was a hell hole.
I don't believe that getting help from the government to feed your children is getting a "handout" and it pisses me off when people talk like that. I worked 40 hours a week. I just didn't make enough money to get by. I don't mind paying taxes if I know that some of the money is going towards programs which help women like me. I believe that I am lucky that I am intelligent enough to be able to go to college and get a degree. Not everyone is, and I don't mean that in a snotty way. I just mean that I am lucky. Many people will never make much more than the minimum wage. They either don't have the skills to get very far or they don't know how to get out of the situation that they are in. I personally don't believe that raising the minimum wage would be detrimental as there doesn't appear to be evidence of job loss from the last minimum wage increase.
Here's a short but interesting article about minimum wage and the pros & cons of raising it.
zannebeePeople often feel inspired when they hear stories about some guy who grew up in the rural south in poverty, but was able to get a scholarship to a good college and ends up making a bajillion dollars running his own business or something. It's the American dream, right? However, for every one story like that, there are hundreds like the people that you mentioned. Something that a lot of people don't understand is that not everyone can "pull themselves up by their own boot straps". Many people work hard, but are not particularly bright or skilled at anything. And it's not that they are lazy or "looking for handouts". It's simply their lot in life, and yes, it's depressing. And there will always be a place for these people. Rich people need maids, chauffers, gardeners, etc. 7-11's need cashiers, McDonald's needs fry cooks.I can tell you my story. I was an at home mother with two children when my ex-husband and I split up. I didn't have any marketable skills and I'd never graduated from college. I had to get a job, so I took one making $5 an hour working at an apartment complex as a leasing agent (this was about 10 years ago when minimum wage was about $4.25). They allowed me to live there for free for a few months to get on my feet, but then I had to start paying rent. Rent was $425 a month and the apartment was about 600 sq feet (It was very small). At $5 an hour, I took home about $800 a month. Minus $425, that left me with $375. Gasoline was about $25 a week (I worked on property, but I had to drive the kids to daycare) and I spent about $30 a week in groceries. That comes to about $230. That left me with about $145, or about $35 a week, for anything else we needed, like toilet paper or clothes (which I bought at the thrift store). However, in order to work, I needed to put the kids in daycare, which is very expensive. I don't recall exactly how much it cost me, but when school let out, it was in the neighborhood of about $250 a week. Now if you do the math, you can see that it would cost me more to pay for daycare than I even made. I couldn't count on my ex to pay child support because we were just going through our divorce and he was being extremely difficult to say the least.
So I decided that I could either not work and collect welfare, or work and get help from the governement to pay for daycare. Working two jobs wasn't really an option because then the kids would have been in day care even longer and I couldn't afford it, financially, or for the kids' sake, emotionally. I decided to go to the DES office and apply for help with paying for daycare. I ended up having to pay a co-payment of $25 a week, which if you recall from the previous math project, left me with about $10 a week for anything else. I was barely making it. I mean if the kids had to see the Doctor or my car broke down, I was screwed. I know well the problem finding enough money to pay for a little birthday party.
I ended up also applying for food stamps, which helped some. But I could see that it was going to be a pretty hard row to hoe and I didn't see how I could keep living that way. After about 6 months, I decided that my best option was to go back to college. So I got some grants and loans, and I went back to school. Once I graduated, I was able to get a better paying job. I still don't make tons of money and I have a fortune to pay off in student loans, but I am not in the hell hole that I was back then. And believe me, it was a hell hole.
I don't believe that getting help from the government to feed your children is getting a "handout" and it pisses me off when people talk like that. I worked 40 hours a week. I just didn't make enough money to get by. I don't mind paying taxes if I know that some of the money is going towards programs which help women like me. I believe that I am lucky that I am intelligent enough to be able to go to college and get a degree. Not everyone is, and I don't mean that in a snotty way. I just mean that I am lucky. Many people will never make much more than the minimum wage. They either don't have the skills to get very far or they don't know how to get out of the situation that they are in. I personally don't believe that raising the minimum wage would be detrimental as there doesn't appear to be evidence of job loss from the last minimum wage increase.
Here's a short but interesting article about minimum wage and the pros & cons of raising it.
Posted by: zannebeeI forgot to add in my electric bill and car insurance to my equation. So, I honestly don't know how I got by. I just remember that my grocery limit was $30 a week and I was always broke.
zannebeeI forgot to add in my electric bill and car insurance to my equation. So, I honestly don't know how I got by. I just remember that my grocery limit was $30 a week and I was always broke.
Posted by: 
I agree...just because some people abuse the welfare system doesn't mean that the system should be removed...otherwise it's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. (btw,Zannebee,I admire your fortitude!!)
I agree...just because some people abuse the welfare system doesn't mean that the system should be removed...otherwise it's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. (btw,Zannebee,I admire your fortitude!!)
Posted by: issacharZannebee...
I used the term hand-out because that's the word Sandra used.
Sandra in particular seemed quite adamant that she didn't want to receive anything she hand't earned. Not deserved. Earned.
Obviously there are limits to that sort of attitude. Being too prideful to accept a helping hand is a bad idea.
All in all, I was impressed by their self-reliant (and positive) attitudes.
issacharZannebee...I used the term hand-out because that's the word Sandra used.
Sandra in particular seemed quite adamant that she didn't want to receive anything she hand't earned. Not deserved. Earned.
Obviously there are limits to that sort of attitude. Being too prideful to accept a helping hand is a bad idea.
All in all, I was impressed by their self-reliant (and positive) attitudes.
Posted by: issacharOne other thing that I didn't draw much attention to originally.
A constant theme was single-parent families. Whether divorced or unwed in the first place, it was a constant factor.
Sad, but not terribly surprising. It takes time to raise children one parent has half the time available to two. Nasty cost to a rising divorce rate...
issacharOne other thing that I didn't draw much attention to originally.A constant theme was single-parent families. Whether divorced or unwed in the first place, it was a constant factor.
Sad, but not terribly surprising. It takes time to raise children one parent has half the time available to two. Nasty cost to a rising divorce rate...
Posted by: zannebeeIssachar -
I understood that the term "hand out" was used by the people in the program. It still pisses me off though.
And yeah, it's not surprising that single parent families are poor. In my case, I was pretty young when I had kids, and I spent 6 years at home with them. I was not able to start a "career", so when I did have to find work, it was at the entry level. And with only one parent comes only one income, so two parent families are better off financially (if they both work that is!).
zannebeeIssachar -I understood that the term "hand out" was used by the people in the program. It still pisses me off though.
And yeah, it's not surprising that single parent families are poor. In my case, I was pretty young when I had kids, and I spent 6 years at home with them. I was not able to start a "career", so when I did have to find work, it was at the entry level. And with only one parent comes only one income, so two parent families are better off financially (if they both work that is!).
Posted by: issacharActually two parent families are generally better off even with only one income. A parent at home means no day care costs.
issacharActually two parent families are generally better off even with only one income. A parent at home means no day care costs.
Posted by: zannebeeTrue that.
zannebeeTrue that.
Posted by: Does anyone know how I might make a donation to any of the people who were interviewed for this show?
Does anyone know how I might make a donation to any of the people who were interviewed for this show?
Posted by: issacharNot a clue. You'd have to contact the producers.
But it's not like there's a shortage of people in need. Check out your local food bank. Or better yet, go down and volunteer at your local foodbank. Giving of yourself is better than giving of your cash. (Both is even better).
issacharNot a clue. You'd have to contact the producers.But it's not like there's a shortage of people in need. Check out your local food bank. Or better yet, go down and volunteer at your local foodbank. Giving of yourself is better than giving of your cash. (Both is even better).
