The recent proposal to increase the minimum wage to $7.75 has caught many by surprise-except those who have been quietly facing a growing crisis for years.
The proposal for a 50-percent wage increase seems drastic to many-yet in reality it is only a small step toward changing the living situation for those in low-income brackets. Painfully low minimum wages are only one part of the obstacles facing the country's working poor. Throughout the United States low-wage earners must deal with increasing unemployment, a decrease in benefits and less stable employment as the economy changes from a manufacturing to a service base.
A case study of the growing problems confronting the working class shows the unavailability of low-income housing. Many full-time laborers in this country are unable to afford this most basic of necessities. The situation has been steadily declining over the past decade and has now reached the point of crisis.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition's yearly report, issued in early September, found that housing costs are continuing to rise faster than wages. The report, \Out of Reach: 2003,"" calculates the housing wage for every state, region and county in the United States. The housing wage is defined as the ""amount a person working full time has to earn to afford a two-bedroom rental unit at fair market rent while paying no more than 30 percent of income in rent.""
The national housing wage for 2003 is $15.21 an hour, or $31,637 a year-almost three times the federal minimum wage of $5.15. Additionally, there is no state in which extremely low-income households, those at or below 30 percent their area's median income, can afford the fair market rent on a two-bedroom home.
While Wisconsin is not ranked as one of the top ten most unaffordable states in the country, basic housing is still out of reach for an appalling number of people. The housing wage for Wisconsin is $11.63, an incredible 226 percent of the minimum wage ($5.15 per hour). The fair market rent for a two-bedroom unit is $605 while an extremely low-income household can afford monthly rent of no more than $444. A minimum wage earner can afford monthly rent of no more than $268.
Within the city of Madison the housing wage decreases to $13.77 per hour and the fair market rent for a two-bedroom unit increases to $533. A minimum-wage earner would need to work 107 hours a week in order to afford this. Therefore, even with the new increase, minimum-wage earners would remain unable to afford basic housing.
Governor Jim Doyle has denounced the recent proposal and wants to stick with an across-the-board state increase, but given the disparity of state rental prices a higher increase in Madison is not unreasonable.
Statistics can be both shocking and mundane-but they can never convey the real life struggles of the people they represent. The shocking thing is not the proposed increase, but the surprised reactions it has caused. It is representative of an ever-widening class disparity. The minimum-wage debate is bringing to the surface the plight of people rarely discussed in the mainstream media. Minimum wage is only one symptom of a society that tries to deny and hide significant portions of the population. The majority of the middle class and the majority of students at UW-Madison have no concept of the realities of poverty.
In 1999, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich decided to do some first-hand investigative reporting on what it was like to live on minimum wage in various parts of America. The result, the book ""Nickel and Dimed"" was subtitled ""On NOT Getting By in America"" because Ehrenreich found that she could not fulfill all her basic needs with full time low-wage work. It was impossible for a hard-working single woman to feed, clothe and house herself despite working over 40 hours a week-in this, the land of opportunity.
There are silent penalties of poverty in everyday life that, for a person making minimum wage, can be disastrous. Pain killers, a toothache, a stained dress, laundry costs or a bank overdraft fee are taken for granted by those people who have always had a monetary safety net (often in the form of a family) but can be financial backbreakers for those just scraping by. Additionally, it is actually impossible for the poorest of the poor to live the cheapest, as they often live in substandard housing with no access to laundry facilities, refrigerators or buying in bulk.
The physical and emotional effects of living at the edges of survival doing repetitive, often unrewarding jobs are immeasurable. While the minimum wage debate is important, it is only scratching the surface of the deeper discussions and reforms that need to occur in the face of a changing economy and the growing ranks of the working poor.
