The Fight To Raise Minimum Wage, The Race To Create More Jobs. Actually, We're Just Broke.

There are two things that bother me in the national conversation about working and getting paid. First is the pushback against raising minimum wage, and second is that our answer is to "create more jobs."

The U.S. Department of Labor put out this information on Minimum Wage Mythbusters which is an interesting read, and there are certainly many other sources for information presented to support one side or the other. I am more interested in understanding truth by observing the world I live in, the reality I share with other people. I have heard people complain that millennials are lazy and entitled and should work every bit as hard as the generation before them to reach independence in whatever life they want to create. "Why should it be easier for you? That's not fair!" It's kind of childish, but okay, I get it. When I was 18, I got a job in fast food. It paid barely (cents) above minimum wage. I got an apartment, and it wasn't fancy by any means. No joke, visitors would toss a pebble up to my second-story window to let me know they were there. (Yes, there was a time of no cellphones. It was as rough as you could imagine.) The outer doors of the building were kept locked, not a well calculated security feature. The quick is this: My place wasn't the best or the worst, but it was mine. I wasn't eating steak-- some days I hardly ate at all. I had to save, save, save for new shoes, and my car-- holy shit! I kid you not, I parked on a hill always because sometimes I had to push it, you know, with my hands, to get it rolling so I could jump in the driver's seat and "pop the clutch" to get it started. This is how Americans get initiated, and hey, it builds character. It also builds muscle when you have to force your car to cooperate like that. So yeah, I get it. The problem is this new generation isn't getting the same opportunity I was given to start out on one's own. They actually can't do what we did.

I have a millennial out on her own. She is a hard worker and has strong work ethics. She got job experience while she was still living with me, and by the time she moved out, she was making more than minimum wage, several dollars above minimum wage in our state. However, she does not have her own apartment. She lives with two paying roommates, and they all still struggle to make ends meet. By the way, there is no "popping the clutch" on her car or any of the other ways we used to rig those things. There are all these ways her generation pays more for everything, from car parts to contact lenses. It used to be you could stretch the wear of contacts until they fell apart. Now, they are disposable and prescriptions are good for one year only. If her glasses break after a year, she has to have an exam to get them replaced. It might not sound like much, but all of these big and small ways they pay add up to create a much higher mountain than I had to climb.

It's interesting as well to consider minimum wage issues along with the constant political talking point: "Create new jobs!" I wonder why. Is that so people can add a third or fourth job to their plate? I am sure there are areas in desperate need of jobs. I have no doubt, but I don't think it is the single answer to our economic problems here. It doesn't matter how many jobs we create if none of them pay enough, and none of them pay enough! We are working our asses off and we are broke!

I don't understand the anger and aggression toward those who say, "we should be able to earn a living with minimum wage jobs." I really don't, because if minimum wage is, say $15 an hour, then my daughter might get the chance I did to start out in a struggle for independence. Really, because $15 an hour is not white picket fence living these days. Evening the playing field, if we are talking about what is fair, is pouring more dirt on their end.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand then adding some to our side, too.

Because none of us is making enough money. 

"And I’m pissed. Pissed as hell. Pissed that child care is so prohibitively expensive in our country. Pissed that American wages haven’t kept up with inflation, so that so many parents are forced to work an ungodly numbers of hours and still can’t make ends meet. And I’m pissed about the stigma that is given to lower income families — the incorrect assumption that they don’t try hard enough or work hard enough," (I'm Tired Of Living Paycheck To Paycheck).

My husband and I both had good jobs, but between child care and rent, we were spinning our financial wheels. I ended up switching to a night shift. My husband and I were tag-teaming family care, and I was on the losing end of sleep since my preschooler got up at 7 AM whether I was ready or not. The quick is this: we started looking for another way to work out both paying bills and still being able to recognize each other in a crowd. That included both of us looking for a different job, and it was utterly depressing. Jobs that used to be damn good jobs to score (and I mean, moving up in the world kind of jobs) were offering scraps for pay. Scraps. We aren't living above our means. We don't have car payments. But both of us working any of those jobs full-time would still put us one catastrophe away from losing everything because there is no savings. We are barely keeping up and we are among so very many. So when I hear people complain about "raising minimum wage," I wonder what their world looks like. I wonder why they don't know that they, too, (most likely) are just another dog under the table, waiting for the masters to drop some leftovers we can fight over.

Photo via Ed Schipul