[Winona Online Democracy]
Hello Winona Online Democracy,
Here is an article that will appear in the Star Tribune.
It deals with the low wages that dominate Winona, Minnesota, and the whole
country. I don't know about you but many of my family and friends work at
jobs like those described in the article.
In the past, some members of the local Green Party have talked about having
a community forum on the subject of a living wage ordinance. (A living
wage law is very different than our pathetic minimum wage laws. It deals
with the wages a parent or family would have to be paid to live a basic and
decent life.) Would anyone else be interested in a community forum about
that topic? The forum could be a coalition planned event.
Anyone interested?
This is a central quality of life issue for Winona, Minnesota, and everywhere.
Dwayne Voegeli
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Author Barbara Ehrenreich To Discuss Low-Wage Workers In Visit
Jean Hopfensperger
Star Tribune
Monday, May 21, 2001
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Barbara Ehrenreich is a nationally acclaimed social critic and author, but
when she came to Minnesota last year, she became a Wal-Mart retail clerk.
The reason: She was doing undercover research for her latest book, about
the status of low-wage workers in America. Minnesota was to be her last,
and the most "easy" stop.
Instead, Ehrenreich found herself in a frustrating and ultimately fruitless
search for affordable housing during her one-month stay. And in the regions
she visited, the Twin Cities became the toughest in which to make ends meet.
Ehrenreich will return here Tuesday to speak at Macalester College in St.
Paul and at a labor rally, where the results of a study of low-wage
workers in Minnesota will be released.
"When I came to Minnesota, I thought it would be easy to find a job,
housing, a congenial neighborhood to live in," said Ehrenreich, the author
of a dozen books and frequent contributor to publications ranging from Time
to the New Republic. "I was shocked at the housing shortage and high rents."
Her $7-an-hour job could barely cover the cost of the cheap motel rooms she
ended up renting and the fast-food restaurants and delis she relied on.
"And I didn't have any kids," she said in a recent telephone interview.
The study that will be released Tuesday calculates that a single parent
with two children would need to make $16.36 an hour to support the family
adequately. The study was conducted by the JOBS NOW Coalition, a group that
advocates for low-wage workers and has more than 100 member agencies and
organizations statewide.
But only 27.8 percent of women working in Minnesota earn that much, the
report found. It also found that about half of working men in Minnesota
earn enough to support a two-parent, two-child family adequately. That
figure is $14.65 per hour. (The reason single parents must earn more is
because they need to pay for child care.)
"That's what's important about 'Nickel and Dimed' [Ehrenreich's new book],"
said Kris Jacobs, executive director of the coalition. "It opens this veil
of invisibility over the population of workers barely making ends meet."
'Wal-Martian life'
Ehrenreich selected Key West, Fla., which she lives near, Portland, Maine,
and the Twin Cities to do her research on low-wage workers. She chose the
subject to test the premise behind national welfare changes, namely that a
full-time worker should be able to support a family.
Posing as a homemaker reentering the work force, she would show up in town,
rent an inexpensive car, and search for a job and housing. She worked as a
waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and a
Wal-Mart clerk. And along the way, she caught a glimpse of life of the
working poor.
Several memories of Minnesota stand out.
While going through an eight-hour orientation at Wal-Mart, one of her
fellow job-seekers had her husband and son wait for her in the store
because they couldn't afford the gas for a round-trip home. (Ehrenreich
will not reveal at which Wal-Mart she worked.)
While visiting a social service agency to get a housing referral, the woman
helping her kept confusing her with another Wal-Mart worker who had just
come in seeking emergency relief.
While driving home from her suburban job, "I'd see so many people sitting
in the bus stops, so far out of town. That staggered me. I tried to imagine
what it would be like to add three hours a day of commuting to my schedule."
But it was the housing, or lack thereof, that brought her down. Unable to
find an affordable apartment, she wound up -- as many low-income workers do
-- living in a series of cheap motels. She moved out of one of the more
depressing ones -- a place with no screens on the window, no bolt on the
door, no sense of safety.
"I was shocked I could not find any apartment for under $800 a month,"
Ehrenreich said. "I was surprised at how hard you have to work to remain in
poverty."
The report
The JOBS NOW report doesn't measure poverty; that's done by the federal
government. But it does give social service agencies and policymakers a
yardstick to measure a "basic, no-frills budget," Jacobs said.
The figures were calculated by using standards from federal and state
agencies. They cover food, housing, health care, transportation, child
care, clothing and other necessities and net taxes. They don't cover
vacations, savings accounts, restaurant meals, movies and other
nonessentials.
The report found:
The average annual cost of meeting basic needs for a single person with one
child in Minnesota is $29,000, or $13.94 an hour. That's 2? times as high
as the federal poverty line of $11,610. And it's twice as much as the
welfare system's "exit level," which is $13,932 for a mother with one child
leaving the system.
Living expenses in outstate Minnesota are 16 percent lower than in the
seven-county metro area, but wages in outstate Minnesota are 31 percent
lower.
In the four western-most regions of the state, living costs are 20 percent
lower than the metro area. However the average wages in those four regions
are 42 percent lower.
"The report shows that cost of living is outpacing the [pay] raises that
people are getting," Jacobs said. "Even though we're looking at some very
good years, [1998-2000] it's still a [financial] challenge for a large
group of people."
To learn more about the report, go to http://www.jobsnowcoalition.org.
-- Jean Hopfensperger is at [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
© Copyright 2001 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
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