A man posted this letter in the opinion section of my local newspaper back in 2014.
Increasing minimum wage makes a difference
Posted: 04/18/2014 6:14 AM
I was a beneficiary of the minimum wage laws.
When I was earning my undergraduate degree from 1972 to 1976, I was earning a minimum wage of $1.75 an hour as a laundry worker. In addition to taking 12-14 hours of college classes, I worked from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. six days a week either driving a van that picked up dirty linen from nursing homes — or stuffing that laundry in 400-pound capacity washing machines.
For a year, I was also the assistant manager of an apartment complex, vacuuming hallways on the weekends, getting my apartment rent-free.
My after-tax take home pay 40 years ago was about $75 a week. Not only did my wife, who was a stay-at-home mom, & I live on it, we paid my full tuition, books, & fees; paid off the doctor ($600) and hospital ($600) bills for my daughter’s Caesarean birth, & even had about $1,000 in savings when I graduated.
We took no food stamps, no student grants or loans, & no money from relatives. And while it was at times tempting, we robbed no banks.
Yes, we were very frugal. Our apartments were small, uncarpeted, & un-air conditioned. We drove a $400 used car. The only time we saw the inside of a restaurant was when a relative took us out for supper.
There were no cellphone, Internet, or cable bills. But we did not starve, go naked, or feel deprived — at least that I remember.
Why? Apartment rent was $80 a month, including utilities. Groceries ran about $15 a week. Full tuition was $140 a quarter.
In the 1970s a new car could be had for $3000 & house for $10,000. Gas was 30 cents a gallon. We had no health insurance, but could afford to pay for doctor & dentist appointments upfront. Chewing gum, candy bars & small bags of potato chips were all about a dime.
I bought a new B&W 19” TV for $80 & a stereo for $300 (Big fight over that one, but boy, did Maria Muldaur singing “Midnight at the Oasis” sound good!)
So here is my point: I estimate that the cost of living has gone up by 1,000 percent since my days in college. Today’s apartment rents are $800, cars $30,000, & candy bars $1.00. Yet the minimum wage, even with this last increase, is nowhere close to $17.50 an hour. One cannot live, even modestly, on today’s minimum wage.
This makes it necessary for the government to step in & provide food stamps, free-&-reduced hot lunches, & subsidized health care, child care, & housing for the working poor.
We’ve made the trade off as a society that we’d rather pay higher taxes to fund welfare benefits than pay an extra few pennies for our Big Macs so salaries would allow workers to live without help.
My guess is that most people who are working at minimum wage would prefer making enough to take care of their own living expenses rather than being on the dole. Who really wants to see themselves as a charity case?
By raising the minimum wage we are also raising people’s self-sufficiency — a genuinely American value. Thank you, Minnesota legislators, for nudging us in the right direction on this important issue.