I am still new to understanding this fun stuff, but I try to think of my own experiences. I have always worked jobs either at min wage or just above, so I noticed that every time it went up and I got a 'raise' at work, I should have theoretically been doing better, but I wasnt because where my highest costs were incurred, especially as a single parent, people there made minimum wage too (grocery stores, clothing stores, etc) and their prices increased. So my measly 50 cents an hour 'raise' did not really go anywhere. Part of it was lost to income tax and other federal deductions, and part was lost in the extra few cents here and there on most products I purchased. In other words, I may have received an extra $100 per month, but I was not able to buy an extra $100 per month in goods for my family.
For many people in the US, their higher costs show up in the format of health care, housing, etc - but when you actually MAKE minimum wage, you notice it right down to the 3 cents extra on eggs or 10 cents on milk or 25 cents on bread. My highest cost for 10 years was my grocery bill. Now I am up to $800 a month minimum while my rent is $1100. Before I know it, those numbers could be equal.
When I was younger, in my 20s and very early 30s, I was always thrilled to bits to have an increase in minimum wage. WOOOO a bit more money! 50 cents an hour working full time meant an extra hundred bucks in my pay cheque each month... or did it? I remember clearly one year when min wage went up and my boss was happily writing our pay cheques out because she wanted her staff to be able to get more money, and she had put the parent fees up to match it (seeing as I stated in another post, almost 80% of her work income went straight to wages and related monies), and then she frowned. She noticed that my tax went up a significant amount, and deductions, and I was left with about $70 instead of $100. Big hairy deal. I was barely making it as it was and now I had a whopping $70 extra per month - and within another couple of months, prices increased on products and that was it. My big raise was gonzo. And since then, I have noticed it each time min wage went up.
If you think about one single product and the number of people it has to go through before it hits the store and you buy it, you can easily see how the min wage raises can affect prices (aka a form of inflation). Perhaps people working at the bag factory that supplies your bread brand were min wage and then the price per unit of the bags went up for the bread place -as well as all of the places that the bread factory gets its ingredients from (flour, sugar, milk, eggs, preservatives, etc), and then some of the workers at the bread factory were also min wage (janitors, etc) so the price of the bread went up a bit to make up for the extra cost for bags/ingredients and the factory staff, and then the product makes it's way to the store and the trucking company had to raise some of it's staff wages as well (even those working in the shop, paper pushers, etc) so the price of the loaf goes up a little more because of that as well - and the bread finally reaches the store who had to raise the wages of all it's min wage staff as well and tada - you are paying more for your bread, which takes a little chunk out of your own minimum wage 'raise'. I don't see why it's so hard to understand that a simple min wage increase can get out of hand all along the line and the consumer/min wage worker feels it directly in their wallet.
Speaking of the value of the dollar, my brother has taken to going down to Montana every year to visit friends and he just got back this week. He was shocked at how the prices on products down there are so similar to our's now. Canadians used to flock to the states to shop. I remember my parents going hog wild buying up shampoos, soap, toilet paper, laundry soap, etc and over the years that lost it's appeal but people could still hit a good bargain... not so much anymore. My brother even went to Costco in Kallispell and did not buy a single thing because it costs about the same up here and wasn't worth dragging it across the border. He was surprised. It's not because our dollar is gaining strength really, it's because the US dollar is worth less. Our news likes to say our dollar is strong, but I know that is not the truth. The shampoo that used to cost a dollar down in the States, and is now four dollars, is not WORTH 4 bucks - it is still worth one dollar but you have to pay 4 to get it. That's pretty sad. The cost of living up here in Alberta is so high, it was surprising to see prices over the border being almost identical. That does not bode well. But if min wage in Montana were raised to match Alberta, since prices were about the same, that would mean raising it almost $2/hr! ($7.65 in Montana, $9.40 in Alberta). British Columbia's is going up to $10.25/hr on May 1st so Alberta may feel pressure to follow that. That would mean my boss would have to jump our pay up again because what she actually pays most of us is $10.51/hr and after working there for such long periods, it would not look right to have staff making 26 cents more than min wage. So guess what - if it goes up again, the parents will be paying at the very least yet another $20/month more. Our struggling low income parents are going to feel that the hardest. They will be happy to get their $100 or so bucks a month 'extra' and then turn around and give 20% of it to the daycare right off the bat. How exciting. As I have gotten older and paid more attention, I do not see an end in site. Honestly, is min wage going to have to be $20/hr by the time my 14 year old becomes an adult? A sure sign that all of our money is failing and something drastic needs to be done.
The title of this thread seems to imply that min wage hikes can actually hurt the poor instead (or at least, not really make it better or worse), and I have seen that steadily for almost 15 years in my own personal life.
It inspires me so much because it makes me think of the show. To me it resembles Ron Paul and us. Kamina = RP. Motivator teaching you to always be truthful to yourself, fight for what is right, with extreme passion. Simon = Us, understanding the message, fulfilling it to the best of our abilities and trying to become that message for generations to come. Never allow it to go away. Always remind everyone you know so this country can never again become what it is.
