So today I cought a few minutes of Morgan Spurlock's show 30 days (I know, there is no TV time in my schedule by its the last day of Spring Break before the new rigid schedule begins). In this episode Morgan and his girlfriend try to live like much of America for thirty days--on minimum wage with no health insurance. Can you imagine living on $7.25/hour (the current federal minimum wage)?
Morgan works two jobs, each for 8 hours/day and his girlfriend works one job, and after taxes they probably end up with about $130/day. They had to eat beans and rice for every meal because that's all they could afford (when you figure the cost of their tiny apartment, electricity, and one bus pass). She got a urinary track infection, and while working manual labor jobs he injured himself and went to the emergency room, and that is about all it took to wipe them out.
On Medical Care: So, in the US many many people simply cannot have medical care. They cannot afford it. They can't afford the time off work, and they cannot afford preventive care. When things get bad enough that they have a medical disaster they can recieve free assistance to patch them up, but will never receive preventative care and will thus have shorter, less healthy, lives. That sucks.
On Children: So, in the US two minimum wage people cannot earn enough to feed a family. Have you ever considered that such low pay means America restricts the poor from having children, unless they go on welfare. Gee, I think if I was poor I'd pop out the kids too and get the welfare. It is not just because such adults are lazy freeloaders (which they may be), it is the only option. How else can they raise children? Perhaps if we raised minimum wage we'd have less people on welfare (obviously we'd need to discourage welfare somehow just as we provide a viable alternative--neither will work without the other).
In America we have many, many people who do not have the education or skills to obtain better paying jobs, and their labor value is determined by government imposed minimum wages--not the actual value of their labor. Obviously politics is behind the estimation of $7.25/hour, but is their labor--picking up trash, washing dishes, making boxes--really worth $7.25/hour? That depends on how you estimate the value of labor; there are two ways: (1) labor value can be determined by estimating the benefit of the service/labor they are providing; or, (2) labor value can be determined by the amount of other people similarly able to complete the same task (demand). In America, the latter prevails. Why pay Joe Shmo $10/hour to do a job that John Doe will do for $5/hour? The problem is that nobody can live on $5/hour, at least not over the long term and not in a reasonable status of living--not without going on welfare services.
People who put in an honest day's work deserve basic things--water, heat, shelter, food, etc. I think they deserve basic preventative medical care too (an occasional medical check up). If we use the former formula for determining the value of labor--demand for the service they provide--we can see that people actually produce more than they are paid at these crappy jobs. The evidence of that is the company profits. Essentially, the company owners and upper management extract a portion of the value of labor for themselves. When corporate CEO's get those massive paychecks that money (or the value) has to come from someplace--it comes from shaving a bit of the value off of all the underlings' labor. The reality is that nobody produces so much (or plans/organizes/leads so well) that they deserve to be paid millions of dollars a year, but in the US we accept it because we're blinded by our paranoia of socialism. By establishing an unreasonably low minimum wage we essentially make it legal for owners/upper management to extract so much of the labor's value from the workers that the workers cannot obtain basic things (medical care, children of their own, heating, running water, etc.).
Socialism is not a nasty bad word. It is an American virtue that goes back to the 19th century. Americans have long demanded "socialistic" reform. The core tenant of socialism--redistribution of wealth--has really taken on all sorts of negative connotations. Big business owners don't want the money they steal from the masses to be given back to the masses--they never had. The Populist movement push to redistribute wealth climaxed in the early 20th century Progressive movement and Americans finally supported a more substantive personal income tax that put us on route to our modern system. Does anybody think the graduated income tax is wrong? Shouldn't somebody who makes a million bucks a year get taxed more than somebody making minimum wage? Of course they should. Well, that is wealth redistribution, and it is at the heart of our tax system--and we're okay with that. The wealth and big business campaign to minimize that progressive taxation--they want to pay as little as possible (who can blame them--nobody wants to pay); nevertheless, as exploited as poor Americans are, they should get a little more help. I'm not talking about dolling out welfare--I mean the working classes should receive the same basic things most other Americans have--preventative medical care, an occasional day off work, a living wage high enough to raise a family. Everybody deserves these things, and government needs to step in and make it happen. The wealthy wont do it voluntarily, and the poor don't have the time or influence to demand it, so the responsibility to demand change falls to us. ALL Americans deserve basic things, and its our moral responsibility to help all honest workers obtain these basic goals.
Nobody is calling for communism--just pay people a fair wage. People who put in a full day of work deserve to have a shelter, food, heat, water, children, and health care. In a country this wealthy there is no reason we cannot provide it to people who are willing to work for it.
