Posted on 09/10/2001 10:44:27 AM PDT by NorCoGOP
HOUSTON -- Many people have worked minimum wage jobs, but few have actually gone out specifically to get one. That is precisely what author Barbara Ehrenreich set out to do one her two-year study of minimum wage work.
Her findings can be found in her new book entitled "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America." Over the two years, she worked many "unskilled" labor jobs and stayed in the cheapest lodgings possible to see if a person can really live on a minimum wage salary.
Ehrenreich read from her book and took questions from an audience last night at Houston's Brazos Bookstore.
"A lot of this book is about the work. It is about the day-to-day experience," Ehrenreich said. "Like trying to find a place to live, trying to find a job and trying to master the job so you won't get fired."
In the two years she put herself through these experiences, Ehrenreich moved from city to city seeing if any one city was better than any other.
"I didn't go to places like San Francisco because I thought the prices for housing would be too high," she said. "What surprised me was that the price for housing was still too high in less glamorous cities like [Minneapolis and St. Louis, Mo.]. That came as a shock."
To survive, Ehrenreich held many different jobs from waitress to cleaning woman, even enduring a stint as a Wal-Mart sales clerk.
"I will never refer to any job as 'unskilled labor' anymore," she said. "Every job, especially the minimum wage jobs, requires skill. In fact, the minimum skill jobs were some of the hardest jobs I have ever had."
The hardest position Ehrenreich had was easily that of a maid.
"This was by far the most physically punishing job that I took part in," she said. "I never even knew jobs like these existed, but I signed up for one when I found it."
The maid service she worked for had her do everything from cleaning windows to scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees. The job would not even allow the drinking of fluids while in a house.
"I am not a stranger to sweat in large quantities," Ehrenreich said. "But at least I would always be able to replenish -- with water afterwards."
What Ehrenreich really discovered in her journey through the "lower-class" world was that everything is not as easy as society makes it seem.
"I grew up on blue-collar ethics," she said. "You work hard, work hard, work hard and you would be OK. But I was working harder than I had ever worked in my life and I saw that I was getting nowhere at all."
Working in the minimum-wage world exposed Ehrenreich to many things that truly shocked her, including co-workers who did not have homes and those who did not eat enough.
"My middle-class mentality told me that when I see someone eating a bag of chips for lunch, or just skipping lunch completely, they were just on a diet," she said. "Later I realized that the reason they didn't eat lunch was that they couldn't afford it. To the people I was working with, a pizza would be considered a luxury because they simply didn't have the money to afford it."
To Ehrenreich, this was not right. The conditions she saw were truly appalling to her, she said.
"We are really not only in an economic crisis, but a moral crisis," she said. "Statistics that were taken by the 2000 census show that 29 percent of Americans are not making enough money to support themselves."
She said that the best thing anyone can do is get involved at a grassroots level.
"The subjects of poverty and wealth have gotten off the agenda of politicians," Ehrenreich said. "We need to get them back. We need to get involved in activist groups that are trying to do something with these issues, and we can't be in denial in of the existence of poverty. We need to fix this."
This might lead to cheaper shared meals.
Also, her job as a sales clerk may have lead her to become a manager if she had stayed at the job longer.
Entry level is always the toughest because the company has no idea whether or not you are competent. As you show your competence you either move up, stay in place, or hit the road.
Waitresses make far more than minimum wage. Unless you are the worst waitress on the planet. Which she might have been.
HURL!!!!
There...that's better!
And whose fault is this? If anyone of these people in this 29% shows up at my office with the proper education and skills, they can start at $55,000 per year first thing Monday morning.
I won't buy her book, but I wonder if her employers can tell her story? Oh, I forgot, an employer cannot discuss an employees performance without getting sued. Hey Barbara, try farming for a living!
The most important point about this article. This idea is promoted by those who think that just having a job, any job, entitles one to compensation which provides for all the neccessities of life, i.e. the Marxists.
You got that right! And to make matters worse, its difficult to improves ones education when you can barely make enough to pay the bills.
You can try 'living' with someone, but then you never really feel like its 'home', but more like its a temporary place to reside. And then you have the possibility of your houseguest stiffing you for their portion of the rent, and up and leaving you with long distance phone calls. (Had this happen to me)
Taking another person in to help pay the bills is risky business. And unfortuantely a lot of minimum wage jobs are not 40 hours a week, so one is forced to work two and three jobs trying to get by. And even then these places often do not have any benefits, so you pay all of that out your meager pocket as well, and forget about trying to have a savings account. There is never enough to put into a savings account. The bills get paid by robbing Peter to pay Paul.
And you don't have a life because you end up with jobs that work weekends or with mutiple jobs, that you work everyday, just not at all of them on the same days.
Living on minimum wage is hard to do. That's a fact.
Oh the humanity. A liberal feminst getting down on her knees? They only do that for politicians these days.
The operative word here is "unskilled." You are paid for what you produce. If you are only worth minimum wage, then that is what you get. If you are not worth minimum wage, you will be fired in short order. If you are worth more than minimum wage, you will soon be promoted and given a raise to keep you on the payroll. This is to reduce employee turnover costs. If you want more money, learn to be more valuable to your employer, period. Raising the minimum wage only serves to put more people who can't produce out of work.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic!)
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