Since when is a minimum wage job supposed to be able to support more than even one person, much less a family?!
Reading an article in the Daily Press last week, "Paying a fair wage is no shell game," by Benjamin Cuker, I get the idea that some (many?) people believe a family should be supported by this type of wage. Certainly, Mr. Cuker does.
The article is about crab picking. It's a tough job to be sure. To make the minimum wage, workers must pick at least 200 crabs per day. Apparently, companies are unable to attract enough U.S. workers to fill all their positions. To fill the gap, they've hired temporary immigrant workers. The immigrant workers are regulated by the Labor Department's H-2B program. So this is not an illegal immigrant issue, at least. Mr. Cuker explains that there are negotiations underway that could raise the pay for crab pickers as high as $11 per hour. Naturally, the seafood industry says this will drive crab meat prices so high that demand would drop drastically.
Well, an increase from $7.25, the current minimum wage, to $11.00 is one heck of an increase! 51.7% to be exact. Wow. Crab meat is already expensive. Looking at Maryland Blue Crab Express, one pound of picked crab meat is $32.95. It's even higher on other sites. I don't know what the demand is, but consider how much less demand would exist if the price jumped 52% to $50.08 per pound. How many crab pickers would have to be let go? Less demand = fewer workers. So the workers and the seafood industry are in a tough spot, the workers want more money, the industry wants to stay in business.
Then Mr. Cuker takes the cake with this gem:
A wage of $7.25 per hour yields a gross of $290 per week, or $1,160 per month. After deductions the minimum-wage worker has less than $1,000 a month to feed, clothe, house, transport, and pay for healthcare for herself and often one or more children. And often she has child care expenses.Excuse me! What? When did a minimum wage job mean that you could afford a family?!? Look, minimum wage jobs are meant to be filled by people who need simple work experience. You work the job, you get experience, and you move on to another job or to management in the same company.
I guess if you're lacking in motivation, you stay at the minimum wage level and then complain about you can't make ends meet! Look - some jobs just aren't worth a whole lot of money. They don't require any experience or skill. All the require is that they get done! These are the jobs you'd expect to see high school and college kids filling for spending money.
If you're working at a minimum wage level, don't have kids! You cannot expect to support a family with a job that doesn't require any skills. Now I'm not heartless. I know that times are hard and jobs are hard to find. And there are many more minimum wage jobs than any other type. People who find themselves in a position like the one described above should have gotten their by a streak of bad luck or accident. And yes, I am saying that if you are working for minimum wage and then have a kid, it should have been an accident! People who know they can't afford a family should not be trying to have babies.
However, people who do find themselves in this tight spot have help. We, the tax payers are sympathetic to their plight. There are plenty of government programs available - food stamps, WIC, Medicaid, education programs, work training programs, reduced price lunches at schools, etc. But these programs are not meant to be permanent. Work your job, accept the help and bust your ass to get out of the position your in!
Mr. Cuker ends his article by saying he'd be more than happy to pay a dollar more for a crab cake if it means that the person picking the crab gets a better check. He needs to rework his math. Crab cakes are running $10 these days. Better pick up that buck and put down a 5 spot, Benjamin. Then stroke a bigger check to Uncle Sam because crab pickers across the nation will begin collecting unemployment.
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