30 days - minimum wage

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Interesting show, just got around to watching it on tivo. This episode doesnt appear to be running again any time soon.

The guy that did 'supersize me' does 30 days in different guises...in some future episodes disguised as a muslim living in america, for example.

In this one, he and his fiancee take on the minimum wage. Equipped only with what appears to be a few suitcases of landsend clothes and a $500 set of pots and pans, they throw one weeks worth of minimum wage cash in their pockets and hit the streets.

Day 1 they find an apartment in the seedy part of town, complete with bugs and a recently vacated crackhouse apartment downstairs. No heat. After sleeping on the floor in their winter landsend duds they get a local church to donate them a full set of furniture.

Day 2 they both get jobs...he finds work at a temp agency doing drywall sanding and scraping up old turf from someone lawn...both paying $7 an hour, so he's up and over minimum wage. He explains the agony of wanting to just buy food when he's hungry but knowing he cant afford it. Stuffs himself on free pickles at a deli while applying for a job. She applies to every place with a help wanted sign but only gets an offer from a coffee shop bussing tables and hand washing dishes.

I'm going to say up front that both of them obviously have never experienced poverty or done a hard days work, and neither of them, right to the end, really and truly 'get it', although they do a nice liberals job of bemoaning the fate of the people forced to live at the minimum wage level.

They're both bringing home ~40-45 a day, but thats getting wiped out in advance as the apartment owner wants a months deposit, the electric company wants a $110 deposit in advance before they'll turn on the power, and they need other one-time items, like blankets, sheets and so forth...purchased at the salvation army at least.

After a couple of days, Morgan has 'something wrong with his wrist' that he thinks he needs to see a doctor over. I suspect whats wrong is something called 'manual labor'. His fiancee comes down with a bladder infection. They go to the free clinic to find they're #35 in line and nobody over #20 will be seen. #5 was in line behind the other 4 people at 2am.

So of course both of them go to the emergency room and run up $1200 in bills, which they receive near the end of the 30 days just when they're getting ahead, and this sets them back below zero. Morgan notes the $40 itemized charge for the ace bandage they gave him for what appears to have been no more than a sprain, before declaring that healthcare in america is out of control.

Thats probably because poor people with a bladder infection drink cranberry juice and take aspirin, and wrap their own sprains with their own store bought ace bandages, or go to a doctors office for an outpatient visit and a prescription for 1/10th the cost of the emergency room.

During the course of their penniless adventure, I see Morgans fiancee cutting the stalks from broccolli and throwing them away, and buying bottled water in bulk during their grocery shopping and at a store ($2.50 at the store). Poor people drink water out of the tap and eat ALL of the broccolli.

The evidence of stress that finances place on a couple also rears its head near the end. He's been using a bus pass to get to work but she walks six blocks and she lets him hear all about that right after buying her $2.50 bottle of water. The trigger was his purchase of $1.20 of donuts for his two visiting relatives kids they employed to simulate how much worse it is supporting kids on minimum wage.

He editorializes several problems with the working poor, from crime ridden, dirty neighborhoods to being penalized through utilities requiring advance deposits through the costs of healthcare.

Besides the culture shock, it was very obvious that Morgan and fiancee didnt have any experience or knowledge on the art of being poor. My wife and I, both having experience with thin times in our teens and twenties, were clucking our tongues regularly at the excesses and omissions.

A good show and a real eye opener for people who have never lived the low life. Probably would have been better if they documented the life of a couple who actually are poor and how they cope with a lot of the challenges.

What he did show is that a couple, even one inexperienced with living hand to mouth, can get by on two minimum wage jobs as long as they stay out of the emergency room.

Ironically, their combined take home was roughly our almost mythical $25,000 a year budget, although their setup didnt come with a prepaid mortgage and all the other stuff already prepaid as well.

[riskadverse]

An interesting show despite it's faults. While they made a number of survival mistakes, I can imagine anyone used to a more affluent lifestyle would make similar ones. While you spotted more flaws than I did, I can picture a large percentage of the TV audience not seeing any flaws in the manner in which they tried to survive. Hopefully the show opened the eyes of some watchers to the plight of people living on minimum wage.

[laurence]

The key here is most people can make it on minimum wage.....until something bad happens. That's how people fall through the cracks.

[Eagle43]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Notth Interesting show, just got around to watching it on tivo. This episode doesnt appear to be running again any time soon. The guy that did 'supersize me' does 30 days in different guises...in some future episodes disguised as a muslim living in america, for example. In this one, he and his fiancee take on the minimum wage. Equipped only with what appears to be a few suitcases of landsend clothes and a $500 set of pots and pans, they throw one weeks worth of minimum wage cash in their pockets and hit the streets. Day 1 they find an apartment in the seedy part of town, complete with bugs and a recently vacated crackhouse apartment downstairs. No heat. After sleeping on the floor in their winter landsend duds they get a local church to donate them a full set of furniture. Day 2 they both get jobs...he finds work at a temp agency doing drywall sanding and scraping up old turf from someone lawn...both paying $7 an hour, so he's up and over minimum wage. He explains the agony of wanting to just buy food when he's hungry but knowing he cant afford it. Stuffs himself on free pickles at a deli while applying for a job. She applies to every place with a help wanted sign but only gets an offer from a coffee shop bussing tables and hand washing dishes. I'm going to say up front that both of them obviously have never experienced poverty or done a hard days work, and neither of them, right to the end, really and truly 'get it', although they do a nice liberals job of bemoaning the fate of the people forced to live at the minimum wage level. They're both bringing home ~40-45 a day, but thats getting wiped out in advance as the apartment owner wants a months deposit, the electric company wants a $110 deposit in advance before they'll turn on the power, and they need other one-time items, like blankets, sheets and so forth...purchased at the salvation army at least. After a couple of days, Morgan has 'something wrong with his wrist' that he thinks he needs to see a doctor over. I suspect whats wrong is something called 'manual labor'. His fiancee comes down with a bladder infection. They go to the free clinic to find they're #35 in line and nobody over #20 will be seen. #5 was in line behind the other 4 people at 2am. So of course both of them go to the emergency room and run up $1200 in bills, which they receive near the end of the 30 days just when they're getting ahead, and this sets them back below zero. Morgan notes the $40 itemized charge for the ace bandage they gave him for what appears to have been no more than a sprain, before declaring that healthcare in america is out of control. Thats probably because poor people with a bladder infection drink cranberry juice and take aspirin, and wrap their own sprains with their own store bought ace bandages, or go to a doctors office for an outpatient visit and a prescription for 1/10th the cost of the emergency room. During the course of their penniless adventure, I see Morgans fiancee cutting the stalks from broccolli and throwing them away, and buying bottled water in bulk during their grocery shopping and at a store ($2.50 at the store). Poor people drink water out of the tap and eat ALL of the broccolli. The evidence of stress that finances place on a couple also rears its head near the end. He's been using a bus pass to get to work but she walks six blocks and she lets him hear all about that right after buying her $2.50 bottle of water. The trigger was his purchase of $1.20 of donuts for his two visiting relatives kids they employed to simulate how much worse it is supporting kids on minimum wage. He editorializes several problems with the working poor, from crime ridden, dirty neighborhoods to being penalized through utilities requiring advance deposits through the costs of healthcare. Besides the culture shock, it was very obvious that Morgan and fiancee didnt have any experience or knowledge on the art of being poor. My wife and I, both having experience with thin times in our teens and twenties, were clucking our tongues regularly at the excesses and omissions. A good show and a real eye opener for people who have never lived the low life. Probably would have been better if they documented the life of a couple who actually are poor and how they cope with a lot of the challenges. What he did show is that a couple, even one inexperienced with living hand to mouth, can get by on two minimum wage jobs as long as they stay out of the emergency room. Ironically, their combined take home was roughly our almost mythical $25,000 a year budget, although their setup didnt come with a prepaid mortgage and all the other stuff already prepaid as well.

http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm

I could do it, live on min wage, because I have done it! Not fun, but doable, and in come cases, speaking of fun, much more fun than living in the suburbs.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Oh so have I! Working 3 jobs at one point, after paying the fixed bills (rent, utilities, car payment, insurance) I had exactly nine dollars left over every day to spend on gas, food and entertainment. Of course, that was nine bucks in 1980 dollars! :P

Further hint, it cost me about $4 in gas a day to commute to the three jobs and back home for my well deserved 6 hours of sleep...

[laurence]

Been there, done that. School and two jobs and renting a room just to show mom and pop I was "independent". Couldn't afford a bed so I slept on the floor. Ate "fresh deli pizzas" from the local grocery store. 2 for $5, had about an ounce of cheese on it and 4 pepperoni. Made it last all week. Top Ramen every other meal. Never ate out, even Mc-E-Dees was out of the question. Did have my beer, though. You know, you get used to plain wrap beer after a while.

....flunked half my classes because I was asleep in them, moved into my Grandma's house and got it together, six months later met the DW. Somebody is looking out for me.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I "lucked out" that two of my jobs were food related, macdonalds with 'one meal per shift' and dishwashing/bussing for a pretty good deli that I dont think exists anymore...the deli was good in that they didnt really care how much I ate while I was working and I managed to wander off with a brown paper sack with a half chicken in it every now and then.

Ramen noodles were my friend. Until some damn mouse got into my stash and had to nibble a tiny bit off of EVERY damn noodle brick. You know you're at the bottom of the pole when you're cutting the vermin chewed bits off your food so you can eat it :P

And yes...the 'paper plate pizzas'. We used to laugh that they were just a paper plate, a little spoonful of sauce and whatever the 'cheese' was, it was probably not organic matter...

[unclemick]

Hmmm

I'd better not watch it - I guess it's those memories/Depression Era parents and more than a few people we know here in La and Ms boonies that help reinforce my 'cheap SOB syndrome'.

What a world of difference - all thanks be to LYBM, time's passage(time in the market) and the kindness of history(1990's).

Living voluntarily on half or less what Firecalc cranks out for a safe number - is a good problem to have.

Other than student days - frugal was never mandatory - just 'the right thing to do'. My parent's went thru the rising tide of postwar consumerism 'waiting for the other shoe to drop' - while everything got better. My 88 yr old Mom can bring back memories of the Great Depression in a heartbeat - now that was a lasting impression.

For me - cheap - is an engineering experiment.

[Whakamole]

Sounds like it meant to be a sensational. Have to throw in a health care visit, so why not a simple sprain - causing a visit to the ER.

Of course, his original movie was on eating junk food every meal, every day for a month - which nobody does.

[justin]

"Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich tells a similar story as the 30 days tv show. The author decides to try to live like the minimum wage earning folks do. Obviously, she found it was hard to get by. Of course, she probably came from a solid middle-class background, so the whole working poor thing was new to her. I haven't read the book. It was the summer reading requirement for incoming freshmen at the Univ. of North Carolina a few years ago while I was a student there. The liberal school requires the students to get brainwashed by read a liberal book. I'm sure the book was an intellectual masterpiece (in the art of deception and oversight). If you like socialism, communism or labor unions, then this book is a must read.

[Caroline]

Quote:

"Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich tells a similar story as the 30 days tv show.* The author decides to try to live like the minimum wage earning folks do.* Obviously, she found it was hard to get by.*I haven't read the book.* It was the summer reading requirement for incoming freshmen at the Univ. of North Carolina a few years ago while I was a student there.* The liberal school requires the students to get brainwashed by read a liberal book.* I'm sure the book was an intellectual masterpiece (in the art of deception and oversight).* If you like socialism, communism or labor unions, then this book is a must read.

Well... I actually DID read the book and, despite a lack of socialist / communist / labor union credentials, I found it to be excellent.

Caroline

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by justin If you like socialism, communism or labor unions, then this book is a must read.

I'm no fan of the first two, but the only reason for the third's existence... is management.

I never had any personal experience with unions when I was growing up so I was largely oblivious until I met my spouse.* I'll never forget her family's stories about IBEW's strike against CBS in the 1960s.* Nearly 40 years later my FIL and every one of his shop remembers who supported them... and who didn't.*

[justin]

Caroline,

I'm sure the book was an interesting read. The synopses of the book that I read made it sound like a staged experiment by the author. Her hypothesis was that it was impossible to live on minimum wage in Amerika. She proved this hypothesis by any means necessary. Didn't she pick the lowest paid jobs on purpose? Didn't she have 5 different jobs during a short period of time? I guess I risk sounding elitist and condescending, but there are plenty of higher-paying entry level jobs, and it isn't that hard to get small pay raises at most low-paying jobs if you are a competent, hard-working employ (by that I mean you show up on time and don't steal from your employer).

I think I could prove it was impossible to live on $50k/yr if given the right motivations

In my experience, this book was used as a piece of propaganda at my local university.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by justin In my experience, this book was used as a piece of propaganda at my local university.

Hey, even propaganda has a purpose, and that book is on my kid's required reading list for that impressionable time between her first job and her matriculation. I'll let her choose between that and just about any book by Eric Schlosser.

I'm still trying to get her to read Marshall Brain's ""A Teenager's Guide To The Real World". Eight years old but an instant classic.

One of Hawaii's most effective college prep programs is considered to be a summer spent working in the pineapple fields.

[justin]

Nords,

I guess Nickel and Dimed would scare some sense into a lot of teenagers. Those other books you mentioned also seem like good books for shaping an impressionable teenage mind.

[Caroline]

Quote:

The synopses of the book that I read made it sound like a staged experiment by the author.

I didn't read any synopses of the book -- only the book itself.* That may explain our differing viewpoints.

Quote:

I guess I risk sounding elitist and condescending, but there are plenty of higher-paying entry level jobs, and it isn't that hard to get small pay raises at most low-paying jobs if you are a competent, hard-working employ (by that I mean you show up on time and don't steal from your employer).

Our experience differs here, too.* I came from nothing and yes, I clawed my way out -- BA, MBA from top university, and now, the six-figure job.* I know, firsthand, just how hard it was to make that climb out -- and how easy it would have been for any of several small accidents (pregnancy and childcare, job loss, health crisis, etc.) to have knocked me off the rails.* It took hard work.. AND a few lucky breaks... AND the god-given IQ to chart a way out.

If you haven't closed off the house and slept on the livingroom floor all winter to save heating costs... if you haven't roasted and eaten turkey for six months straight because it's the cheapest protein you could get... if you haven't held three jobs at once and STILL had to limit yourself to $3.00 worth of gasoline at a time... then you really just don't know.

Caroline

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Caroline - You had HEAT? Wow. And you didnt have to catch your own protein? Wow again!

We were so poor we had to cling to the windowsills because we couldnt afford floors.

Actually the cheapest protein you can get is the supermarket salad bar when nobody was looking...

[justin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caroline I didn't read any synopses of the book -- only the book itself. That may explain our differing viewpoints. Our experience differs here, too. I came from nothing and yes, I clawed my way out -- BA, MBA from top university, and now, the six-figure job. I know, firsthand, just how hard it was to make that climb out -- and how easy it would have been for any of several small accidents (pregnancy and childcare, job loss, health crisis, etc.) to have knocked me off the rails. It took hard work.. AND a few lucky breaks... AND the god-given IQ to chart a way out. If you haven't closed off the house and slept on the livingroom floor all winter to save heating costs... if you haven't roasted and eaten turkey for six months straight because it's the cheapest protein you could get... if you haven't held three jobs at once and STILL had to limit yourself to $3.00 worth of gasoline at a time... then you really just don't know. Caroline

I would like to read the book at some point. I just added it to my list of books to read. It seems like good leisure reading, and it will make me appreciate that I didn't end up uneducated and unskilled in America. I feel that the story told in Nickel and Dimed is a little one-sided. I just read the first section of the book from an online source during the writing of this post - it looks like a quick read, but I know I'm going to laugh at the author's attempts to prove her point.

I don't know much about your socioeconomic background, nor do you know much of mine, but having come from a rather modest family as well, I have probably been through much of what you have. I was lucky to be able to fund my college education without financial assistance from my parents for the most part. In my situation, I voluntarily took on the burden of paying my own way through my BS, BA and JD (from a top university, no doubt). Between work and student loans, it was hard at times. I had to make sacrifices. I have scrimped on heating the house to save money. I've eaten turkey/ramen/bean burritos for extended periods of time. I've had multiple jobs and school and STILL had to save money. I think our stories of perseverance are more common than you think.

Growing up, we were "homeless" more than once - living day to day in the motel 6 and later living in a camper trailer with no toilet and no AC in the middle of summer (in North Carolina, where it is hot and humid). I say, so what! I'm sure there are a dozen more in line behind me to tell sob stories of not even having a camper trailer to live in. By comparison, my lifestyle would have been enviable.

I don't mean to belittle your personal experiences. But we all have sob stories. Congratulations on becoming successful in life. Many others weren't able to achieve what you have.

[Caroline]

Quote:

From Justin:* I think our stories of perseverance are more common than you think.*

Sounds like it, and congratulations to you on your making your way to affluence, too.

Sounds like we part ways only when it comes to attributing our success to its causes.* I know I worked hard and paid my own way through school -- I also recognize that I was born in the right country, at the right time, and to parents with the right attitude toward education, if not the right bank account.* And no matter how hard I worked for college I know that the generous citizens of California helped to subsidize my education through their fine university.

I also watched my father -- at least as smart as I am -- work his whole life at menial jobs (often two at a time) because he was orphaned at 6 years old and in the first year of the depression.* To say that he might have found a better-paying entry-level job or worked harder is unintelligible to me.*

Bottom line -- I had better opportunities.* For those hard-working people that didn't, I have respect and sympathy.*

And for those who write about them, I say "thank you very much."

Caroline

[justin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caroline Bottom line -- I had better opportunities. For those hard-working people that didn't, I have respect and sympathy. And for those who write about them, I say "thank you very much."

I would say I have respect and empathy.

From the brief bit of the book that I did read and from the synopses and reviews I read, it seems the author is presenting a narrative story of her experiences of trying to live the lifestyle of a minimum wage worker. Granted, I haven't read the whole book, but it appears naive and superficial from what I've seen so far. It does seem to express a number of the concerns that the working poor face and anecdotally describe the living conditions of the working poor. I'm going to read the whole book. Maybe then my opinion will change. I may even make a post about it!

I share your feelings about education as well. As a product of public schools from kindergarten to post-doctorate, I know that my life would be radically different but for the education I received.