Why?
I think session seven explains one of the main causes of poverty more in depth, low wage jobs. I learned last session that 35% of poor families have one member working a full time job. How can a person working full time not support a family? Well, the current federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour. If a full time person is working forty hours a week that is only $290 a week before taxes. $290 times four weeks in a month that is $1160 a month. The average person in Atlanta needs at least $1449 a month to live a sufficent life. It increases to $3601 a month if that person has two small children. I also learned that the federal poverty rate is based on the cost of fodd a year, not including housing, helath care, or child care. If a family of four needs just food for a year a full time employee needs to make at least $8.65/hour. That's a $1.40 more than minimum wage. That might not sound like a lot to you, but dollars quickly add up and that $1.40 can determine whether you have food on the table or not. Now you really can understand why a person working full time can easily slip into poverty.
What is being done?
The living wage movement is trying to change how people who work full time live. Many people in America feel if a person is working full time and spending all their money just to keep their head above water, they shuld not be living in poverty. This movement started in Baltimore, Maryland in 1994. Of course like every proposed plan people feel there could be horrible consequences like small businesses will be forced to close, which will result in more job losts, but at least people are trying to create a way to decrease the number of families living in poverty.
You made some very good points here about how even a full time job can't support a family which is just a shame. Many families now a days struggle to meet ends even though at least one person is holding down a full time job. Its really sad how this government that's supposedly for the people would let its honest and hard working people suffer in this miserable day. People need to be more properly compensated for the work they do. So a desk job is challenged your brain a little but a physical job is so exhausting, then why is the cleaning lady getting minimum wage and can't support her family but the woman behind the desk sitting down all day really doing not that much getting paid thousands a month? It seems like the easier your job is the more you get paid. Now is this really a country for the people when you can still be working a full time job and end up on the streets because it just doesn't pay enough to support a very basic lifestyle....
ReplyDeleteThe minimum wage, first instituted in the 1930s, would be above $10 today already if it had kept pace with inflation, according to NELP. I think that raising minimum wage rate will help working family’s make ends meet and provide the boost the economy needs for full recovery. Raising minimum wage should be the first thing that government should do.
ReplyDeletePlease comment on mine:
http://cultureandpovertyus.blogspot.com/
You have made some every good points. I especially like your use of calculations, stating that for a family of four to just have to buy food for a year and have enough to eat, they would still not have earned enough money to that single task. This is very sad. I appreciate the stride the government is making in order to make life bearable on the minimum wage, such as they did in Maryland. However, the government does not understand that living in a capitalist society, every year the price of living will increase and the minimum wage should reflect that. Yes, they probably want a solution that does not need to be corrected every year, but I believe that as a government official it is their duty to serve the people and serve them well. Yes, it would need more effort but when hasn't great changes ever not needed more effort.
ReplyDeleteraising minimum wage may not have to be the FIRST aspect to change, but it most definitely one that needs to be improved upon stat
ReplyDelete