Many people are seeing talks about minimum wage increases as bad for our country and hurtful for employment. I read articles stating that rising wages causes less employment and higher costs of product. I see people arguing that they work harder than entry level employees and they have more education than the poor and should get more out of it (as if they don’t anyway). I hear people complaining that McDonald’s menus are going to become more expensive and costly once the company pays their workers more, as if it is a crime to pay more than a dollar for a McChicken in 2015.
Who are we blaming here? Why is it that David Brooks insists that minimum wage workers shouldn’t get paid more because some of them are “teenagers”? How is it that conservatives and Republicans believe that minimum wage shouldn’t be increased along with every other monetary-related institution as time progresses? Is minimum wage not set in place to provide workers in America with a comfortable way of living?
My point is, it is sad to see that people really think everyone in the country today has the means to go to school and pay for higher education while balancing a family, household bills, and a full time job. I am embarrassed by the Americans who have no compassion for the families that can hardly pay their rent with $8.00 an hour, never mind afford thousands of dollars in college bills.
54 percent of minimum wage workers work 35 or more hours a week. This number is comprised of moms, dads, teenagers, and family members who take home a lot of their earnings to their parents, siblings, and children. It is not that these people are too lazy to go to school to get “real” jobs; it is that these people have major responsibilities at home that require them to spend their earnings (or lack thereof) on more immediate expenses.
It is interesting to me that people are upset for the rise in minimum wage from $7.25 an hour in 2009 to $15 an hour by 2021. In 2009, gas ranged from $1.64 to $2.10 a gallon. Today, we pay almost $3.00 or more per gallon. If prices of staple items like gas, mortgage, rent, heat, water, food, and electricity are rising by the year, why aren’t wages? Why is it getting harder and harder to sustain ourselves when it doesn’t have to be? It might’ve been okay to live off of $8.00 an hour six years ago. It is not anymore.
Life can’t be easy for everybody, and maybe some won’t find “higher-skill” jobs. Maybe some will be able to live a little better while working as a janitor or fast food clerk. Because, simply stated, we’re always going to need those people around. Not everyone can be a brain surgeon or a lawyer or the President of the United States, but it wouldn’t hurt to have some compassion for the people that facilitate the lives of the ones that can. Just because someone doesn’t work for the same goals as another doesn’t mean they don’t have people to feed or a car to pay off. Not a lot of people have that luxury. We can’t all be rich and famous. So it’s the least our country can do for the people who live in poverty to let them live a little more comfortably.
