70 Percent Making Minimum Wage Are Adults with Families

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/10/25/7-days-minimum-wage-70-percent-making-minimum-wage-are-adults-with-families/

7 Days @ Minimum Wage: 70 Percent Making Minimum Wage Are Adults with Families

by James Parks, Oct 25, 2006



Throughout the week, millions of Americans are hearing, seeing and getting a sense of what it’s like to try and live at or near the minimum wage at the video blog (vlog): “http://sevendaysatminimumwage.org/.”

The Oct. 23–30 event, sponsored by the AFL-CIO and ACORN, features interviews with seven workers describing life at or near the federal minimum wage, which has not been raised from $5.15 an hour since 1997.

The vlog’s host, comedienne Roseanne Barr, introduces this installment with a very telling statistic, saying raising the minimum wage is:

not about teenagers working for pocket change at a hamburger joint because 70 percent of people working at minimum wage are adults with family responsibilities.

Today, in the third installment, Jeffrey Edwards, who makes just above the minimum wage, $6 an hour, tells what it’s like to try and support a family working at a job that pays so little. The sole breadwinner for his family, which includes a two-month old son, Edwards’ full-time jobs leaves him with $350 take-home pay every two weeks. Out of that, he has to pay all the family bills:

That’s gotta pay the light bill, put half back for rent and then whatever groceries we can buy, buying diapers and formula until we can get some assistance .

FULL story at link above.

[sam sarrha]

1. illness, poverty, questioning authority to Fascists are vices