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Homework Help: Social Studies: World Issues: Surviving on Minimum Wage
by Christopher Davis
Recent welfare reform has left many people below the poverty line and already engaged in minimum wage employment without a vital source of supplementary income because the technical definition of the poverty line has changed. The problem with the borderline and truly impoverished people is that minimum wage employment alone will do nothing in the way of making ends meet for them and in fact the poor will remain so only now they will be forced to shoulder the burden of additional employment to make up for what little the government once offered them. They are members of the working class, since the reform has updated its definition of who is and is not impoverished, and yet they are in reality still poverty stricken, effectively becoming the 'working poor.'
After being eliminated from welfare status and thrust back into the workforce the work these people are able to secure rarely pays more than minimum wage. Without a welfare check to complement their minimal income the new low-wage workers will not be able to maintain what other working class individuals would consider an acceptable lifestyle along with its accouterments such as a car, bed, clean clothing, and comfortable living space. Barbara Ehrenreich’s first hand investigation into the lives of minimum wage workers provides key insights as to why this bracket is known as the working poor and also as to why their situation is deteriorating more rapidly than once imagined. An entire bracket of American citizens stands to fall into the never ending spiral of poverty created by the latest welfare reform and Ehrenreich’s study makes this startlingly clear.
The poverty stricken minimum wage workers first and most formidable obstacle is securing employment. To be employed one must have an address, but to have an address one must have income to pay for that address. A loop ensues (Ehrenreich 54) in which no income to pay for a room can lead to homelessness which in turn leads to un-employability for lack of address which further decreases any chance of receiving income to rent a room. Entry into the minimum wage workforce is still manageable and by no means impossible. The level of education rarely comes into play when performing the more menial yet challenging tasks presented on the low-wage job. Although Ehrenreich is a scholar and writer she found that in the low-wage work world she was a person 'of average ability.' The tasks presented to the low-wage employee 'require concentration' and swift 'mastery of new terms, new tools and new skills;' few people who have not chiseled away at a low-wage job can imagine just how demanding the workplace can be (Ehrenreich 139). Adding to the difficulty of finding work and holding onto a job as demanding as low-wage labor can be is the fact that many larger businesses such as Wal-Mart and Target hire on a rolling basis. Hires are recruited constantly to build a pool of applicants from which to draw meaning the appearance of a 'help wanted ad may not mean that any help is wanted' or will be called for in the near future, despite the job seekers acute need to be employed (Ehrenreich 57). Finding and holding onto an exhausting job frustrates the minimum wage worker trying to climb out of poverty and what further bars the stairway out of poverty are the backward out of date mathematical equations being used to model the world of the impoverished worker.
The working poor will remain poverty stricken because the models that govern welfare policy were written, tested, and tried true in a different economic America. The cost of living was lower and distributed more evenly over three basic areas of life when the models were constructed (i.e. food, shelter, and clothing). Since the models application by our government two important things have happened to invalidate it; the cost of shelter has risen and the cost of food has decreased (Ehrenreich 200). This means that when the model dictates someone is no longer eligible for welfare and they are cut off from welfare they cannot actually support themselves with the work that the model assumes they have or will soon find. When the model says a person will be able to survive because food consumes 24% of their income and rent only 29% it simply is not true because today food consumes approximately 16% while housing eats up 37%. With a minimum wage salary, a worker can only afford the shoddiest of trailers or room rentals and still the cost of rent would cut into money that would otherwise go toward paying for hygiene, and food (Ehrenreich 200). With so much of their income going into housing and the leftovers going into food and hygiene there is nothing to put toward the ultimate goal of rising up out of poverty. Ehrenreich concedes at the conclusion of her study that, after working in the trenches, '[she] could barely support herself' despite her every effort even with the money she allowed herself to start with assuming a low-wage worker would have something saved up (Ehrenreich 199). The mathematics of the low-wage worker’s situation, rents being too high and wages too low, makes it exceptionally difficult for a minimum wage former welfare recipient to climb out of poverty unassisted.
Little attention was paid to the low-wage former welfare recipients struggle because the assumption that employment was the 'ticket out of poverty' was broadly circulated and accepted (Ehrenreich 197). Employment rates have gone up, but the impoverished still persist in one form or another. The truth is that the wages being offered by employers are not keeping pace with the rising costs of living thanks to many sociological factors within the low-wage work force and the resistance of upper management to pay their employees more. Employers resist wage increases with every 'ounce of strength they can summon' because providing higher wages means cutting overall profits (Ehrenreich 203). Low-wage workers are being worked ever harder to keep up with the demands of the rich, but they are not being paid in proportion to their labors. Where a gap should not exist there is a yawning chasm obstructing the passage of the impoverished from their financial disparity to eventual equality with the rest of the working world. Simply having a job and receiving a nearly inadequate allowance on which to live is not enough to pull the poor up out of the grave of poverty because simply having a job is not the answer. The answer lies in changing what it means to be a minimum wage worker and quite possibly changing the minimum wage altogether. As long as the mechanisms that keep wages low, output high, and decent housing out of reach of the minimum wage employee the bleak situation surrounding the impoverished will continue to deteriorate.
The low-wage/minimum wage work force whose paychecks do not cover their expenses, their healthcare needs, or their need to find simple comfortable shelter will always be impoverished. Without the additional support of welfare or other supplementary income they will continue to live lives alien to anyone in the upper classes; living out of cars, unable to purchase clothing, and barely able to keep the lights on and water running in their homes. Barbara Ehrenreich’s experimental foray into the working minimum wage world lends credence to the fact that the working poor will remain the 'working poor' until steps are taken to breakdown the unfortunate machinery of the past that operates today alongside change resistant employers and the incessant rise of the cost of living in the financial substrata of America.
Homework Help: Social Studies: World Issues
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