Good News and Bad News

There are jobs being added to the American economy! They are in the restaurant business. The good news is most of the jobs make more than minimum wage. The bad news is most of them still make less than the poverty line.

Some of you have already started to grumble: So what’s the big deal? These people are getting by, aren’t they? If they want to get a better job that pays better, what’s stopping them? If they want to earn more money, why don’t they just put in some overtime? Aren’t these people all students working part time anyway? And have you considered the cost to the economy of suddenly raising everyone’s pay to a living wage?

Please, allow me to explain why it’s a big deal. First, it isn’t all part-timers and students making these pathetic wages. The majority are adults trying to get by with their families. We are talking about 25% of American workers. Yes, some of these people are part-timers, and almost 5 million of them would love to have a full time position.

Part-time positions, and many low-paying full-time positions, have the additional problem of no benefits. Alternatively, benefits may be available, but at a price that is not feasible for the employee. Lack of health insurance means that people don’t see the doctor until problems are so serious as to be incapacitating; a complaint that could have been taken care of in an office visit the family could ill afford turns into an even more costly visit to the emergency room. Lack of any type of retirement benefits insures that such workers must do one of three things: buck the odds and become upwardly mobile; work until they day they die; spend retirement in even more desperate poverty.

And no, these people are not “getting by.” Financial experts say you should not spend more than 30% of your monthly income on housing. Most reputable apartment complexes simplify this a little and call for a maximum rent-to-income ratio of 3:1. For reference, someone working 40 hours a week at $7 per hour takes home roughly $1200 per month. A third of that is $400. Can quality housing be found in your hometown for $400 per month? What if you have kids, and need a 2 bedroom apartment? I have never been able to isolate a figure for the maximum percentage of monthly income that should be spent on transportation, but I strongly suspect that many families exceed it by trying to keep an unreliable but necessary car running.

Finally, I’d like to point out what few options low wage individuals have to improve their financial situation. Overtime is effectively being eliminated. Congress decided that battle was no longer worth fighting, despite the outrageous number of voters effected. Your Representative and Senators hope you will not remember this slight next November. In fact, if you are too busy at work to make it to the polls, that will not hurt their feelings in the least. I have already pointed out the millions of people who work part-time despite the fact that they would rather work full-time. One of several sad truths — both for these people and for people working full-time at low wages — is that when you are working, it is very hard to look for a job.

The cost to the economy in terms of lost productivity and public assistance may well equal what it would cost to simply pay a living wage.

This item is meant as humor, and contains words considered vulgar, but unfortunately it is true.