7 Days @ Minimum Wage: ‘On the Borderline of Homelessness’

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/10/28/7-days-minimum-wage-%e2%80%98on-the-borderline-of-homelessness%e2%80%99/

7 Days @ Minimum Wage: ‘On the Borderline of Homelessness’

by Mike Hall, Oct 28, 2006

In Cleveland, Amanda struggles to take care of her basic, everyday needs on the $5.15-an-hour minimum wage she earns. But she says that she dreams one day she’ll be able to “live a regular life”—if the minimum wage is finally raised for the first time in a decade.

Amanda, who is featured in the sixth installment of the video blog (vlog) “7 Days at Minimum Wage,” says earning minimum wage means:

You’re barely, barely making it. You’re on the borderline of homelessness or not having enough food.…It’s hard, it’s real, real hard, by the time I get the stuff I need and have to have—like get my clothes washed and groceries, my bus passes to get back and forth to work, I don’t have enough to do stuff to my house…lot of repairs need to be done to my house. I don’t enough money to do it.

Sponsored by the AFL-CIO and ACORN, the vlog will run through Election Day at http://sevendaysatminimumwage.org/. The 7 Days vlog event was scheduled to end Oct. 30, but we’re extending it after getting an overwhelming response. The stories have received more than 10,000 video views, won daily honors on YouTube and have been picked up by the mainstream media and the blogosphere alike.

Amanda, who lives on her own, says that both her parents are also minimum wage workers.

They’re barely making the mortgage payment and paying the bills and groceries. I feel once that (minimum wage) goes up they’ll both be able to make it. It would be a big difference in my family’s life.

FULL story at link above.

[Monkeyman]

1. There are 196.000 homeless veterans

We try helping but it keep getting worse. Union here set up the Midwest homeless shelter but only 250 beds. You feel like your hitting your head against the wall

[Bluzmann57]

2. This one is somewhat personal

as I have worked a few crap paying jobs, including one minimum wage job. I was lucky enough to have a great support network and land a pretty good job, but not all are so fortunate. If any, and I mean any candidate doesn't support a raise in the minimum wage, he or she will not get my vote. One the big three issues in my opinion.

[unkachuck]

3. see Omaha....

....three measly responses....this is America, nobody gives a rats ass....if her and her parents can't make it on $5.15 an hour, tough shit, 'let them die and decrease the surplus population'....

....it ain't my problem, I didn't make their situation....I'm trying to survive myself....get away from me, go get your own, I've got mine....

....SOMEDAY we'll have a champion for Amanda and her parents and then we'll grind that corporate scum and their quislings, who own and maintain this system, into the ground and send them to prison where they belong....

[area51]

4. k&r

It's criminal to keep the minimum wage @ $5.15/hr, especially coupled with the fact that we don't have universal healthcare in this barbaric country.

[Impashund Ubique]

5. If minimum wage was adjusted to inflation

it would be about 10 dollars. And, that would be according to the old, outdated way of calculating family income (3 bowls of food etc.) that doesn't take into account new expenditures and even new sources of revenue. This is yet another indication of how unprepared we are for the 21st century. Besides of course being an indication of how we are losing (if we haven't lost it already) our sense of morality. Increasing the minimum wage is not about charity or giving out handouts, it is about justice. These people are working full time and their wages have literally gone down (when adjusted to inflation), whereas the CEO incomes have gone up by about 300%. This is insane.