Can people really live off of minimum wage? What do the upper class think about minimum wage people? Do they even care about people who are living in poverty and struggling to survive in this society?
In Georgia the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Multiply that by 40 hours per week and you get $290 which is $1,160 per month (do not forget about how much taxes they take out of the check). Rent costs at least $500 a month for a one bedroom apartment, but that does not include utilities and other necessities you need to survive. It is a fact that 44% of homeless people are employed. Now if that does not speak volumes about minimum wage then I don’t know what does then. I have worked at a convenient store and was making minimum wage. We never got
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Some people think that just because jobs pay minimum wage means that the worker’s do not have to work hard. That is a big lie! People who get paid more sometimes have to do less physical work than lower paid workers. People who are in the upper class sometimes think the world owe them everything, and tend to rub their success in people’s faces. There are those who were born into success, and never had to suffer from anything. Then there are those who worked their way up by their selves or simply by joining in social clubs to reach the top as suggested by G. William Domhoff. The welfare reform is supposed to help people in poverty. However, it seems like it never works. Most people use it and it abuse it just because it is there. It supposed to help people in poverty, but also help them get out of poverty. Barbara Ehrenreich expresses in Nickel and Dimed, “The thinking behind welfare reform was that even the humblest jobs are morally uplifting and psychologically buoying. In reality they are likely to be fraught with insult and stress (Grusky, Szelenyi 2010).” This is exactly how most minimum wage workers feel and this is how I also felt. Ehrenreich experienced how it was