A Living Wage

Photo on Unsplash by Towfiqu Barbhuiya

Today, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. While many states, such as California, have adopted higher state minimum wage laws, twenty states still have yet to adopt a higher rate than the federally prescribed one. Even more jarring is the fact that the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour has not increased since 2009, over fifteen years ago. This number doesn’t even include income tax. With the rising cost of living, a single question stands out: Is such a wage enough for someone to live sustainably on? 

Barbara Ehrenreich tried to solve this question by leaving behind her career as a writer and joining the working poor as a server, maid, and salesclerk from 1998 to 2000 with the intent to live on these wages. Although she held this experiment over twenty years ago, her books on the matter teach a shocking lesson; even with two full-time jobs, she struggled to get by. Reading a passage from Nickel and Dimed, a book written about her experiences, we get a sense of her day-to-day life; she barely gets a chance to rest as a waiter, and her two jobs can only afford her a meager trailer to live in. She also describes how her coworkers rely on others to make a living and how “unskilled labor” like serving tables is truly not easy work. 

Even though this novel is set twenty years in the past, it highlights a huge problem in society: getting a job isn’t enough to support yourself. The “American Dream” seems to misconstrue life in the lower economic classes; there, working is often simply about survival, not making it up the social ladder. The United States is built on these laborers, yet they are disregarded and seen as another tool to profit even more. 

The problem that Ehrenreich highlights is likely even worse today. Being paid minimum wage in one of the twenty states that haven’t mandated a higher minimum wage than $7.25 seems like a recipe for disaster. Even needing to take out a payday loan to make a payment on the bills would rack up insane amounts of interest. The truth is that a lack of money can easily spiral into debt. When payments are due, a seemingly innocent loan can multiply into even more debt and a ruined credit score. The wrong type of compound interest can quickly build up; investing is so effective due to this principle, yet when compound interest is present within debt, it works in the opposite direction, like a snowball. Ehrenreich’s life at this point in her life was truly about survival; she talked about how a purchase of a $30 pair of pants would require weeks to recover from. With this in mind and her double shifts, she clearly took her challenge extremely seriously, and yet still struggled to keep up with her finances.

It’s no wonder that the argument for paying workers a living wage is gaining traction; a minimum wage is absolutely not enough to keep food on the table.