There was a time when a person making minimum wage could have a nice place to live, afford a car, groceries and maybe go to the movies, eat out once in a while, and have a life. A couple who both worked full-time for minimum wage could afford a mortgage and insurance. Families were raised by minimum-wage-earning parents.
That ain’t the tea nowadays, ladies and gents.
According to the latest statistics released by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Administration, a person making minimum wage has to work 2.5 full-time jobs to afford a two-bedroom apartment, or a couple has to each work 1.5 full-time jobs just to keep a roof over their heads.
Let that sink in. Someone working two full-time jobs would still need to work part-time someplace else to make rent.
They’re working 100 hours a week and the best they can hope for is to not become homeless.
Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture?
For those of you who might shrug and think, “Well, then they just need to get a better job,” or “Well, they should have went to school,” or my personal favorite, “Well you weren’t supposed to live on minimum wage anyway.” Riddle me this: Do you know why we have a minimum wage in the first place?
Let me break it down for you.
In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. It was partly in response to the Great Depression, and partly in reaction to companies that thought nothing of paying employees peanuts but expecting them to break their backs at work. The FLSA established the 40-hour work week, made overtime pay mandatory, developed child-labor laws and created a minimum wage. This wage, according to the Cornell School of Law, was designed to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees.
One more time for the people in the back: The minimum wage was, “designed to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees.”
In other words, a person working a minimum wage job could afford a roof over his head, clothes on his back and food on his table. He might not have been living high on the hog, but he would survive. His days off might consist of sitting around the house, but at least, a) he had a house to sit in and; b) he actually had time off.
This was true in 1939. It was still true in 1979. Not so much in 2019.
I could go into the facts and figures as to why the minimum wage didn’t keep up with inflation, and why businesses didn’t bother to up the wage for its employees on their own, but that’s not what I want to talk about.
In recent years there has been talk of increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour. It has not been received kindly by many on Capitol Hill or throughout the nation. People are appalled that current minimum-wage workers would receive such a boost in earnings.
I want to know, why all the blowback? Why are people so adamantly opposed to the minimum wage returning to a living wage, since after all, that’s what it was supposed to be?
Do you really think the people who bag your groceries, flip your burgers or clean the toilets at the department stores where you shop don’t deserve to not worry about getting evicted?
Aren’t people working blue-collar, menial-labor jobs not entitled to food on their table and clothes on their backs?
Not to mention there are plenty of administrative assistants, receptionists and other supposed “white-collar” workers toiling at their desks for minimum wage, too.
Now, $15 might seem like a lot. But, it’s not. Referring back to the HUD stats, in order to afford a two-bedroom apartment, a worker in West Virginia would need to earn $14.10 per hour, and those living in Ohio and Pennsylvania would need $15.25 and $19.53, respectively. Now, granted, West Virginia and Ohio have set their minimum wage higher than the federal requirement ($8.75 and $8.55 respectively), but that still means a worker in West Virginia has to work two full-time jobs and a worker in Ohio needs two full-time jobs and an additional side hustle to make rent. And if you work in Pennsylvania for $7.25 an hour, well, I hope you win the lottery and if you’re making it, I admire your hustle.
I know some of you are thinking, “I don’t make $15 an hour. Why should the guy cooking my fries make more than me?” It’s a valid question.
But it’s not the one we need to ask. The real question is, “Why are so many jobs valued less than what the minimum wage should be?”
As a workforce, many of us are undervalued and underpaid. No one who works 8 hours a day, five days a week for 50 weeks a year should have to worry about paying their rent or choosing between buying food or paying the electric bill. The minimum wage was created to eliminate that problem and it’s time we allowed it to do its job.
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