The Liberal Patriot

Making a Living, Just Barely- With George W. Bush’s Jobs of the 21^st Century

J.G. Schwam -March 1, 2005

Recently an article in the Palm Beach Sun-Sentinel highlighted a 57% jump in food stamp recipients from December 2000 to December 2004.  The cold of heart and the parrots of the right will dismiss this huge increase in aid outlays as laziness and shiftless immigrants milking the system.  The numbers underlying this fallacy do not lie.  They tell clear hard truths about our nation’s direction and the service based, profit over living wage, Wal-Mart economy of the 21^st Century.

The subject of the article a single mother is struggling to clothe, feed and care for two young children on a wage of $6.70 per hour.  While this is 25% over the minimum wage, at full time, 40 hours per week 52 weeks per year its only $13,936.00.  $236.00 per week to pay rent, heat a home, feed and clothe her self and two children.  She earns $2,154.00 per year under the Department of Health and Human Services 2005 poverty guidelines, a full 15% below the poverty line.

She however is presumably lucky enough to earn more than the legally institutionalized destitution that federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour represents.  At full time, 40 hours per week 52 weeks per year a minimum wage earner would gross $10,712.00 per year.  A single parent earning m the minimum wage with a single child would be nearly 11% under the HHS 2005 federal poverty guidelines  A single young mother with two children trying to get by without assistance on the minimum wage is living at 32% below the same guidelines, an income at which a caregiver would fail to provide even the most meager level of security for her children.

Source: US Federal Register, Vol. 70, No. 33, February 18, 2005, pp. 8373-8375.

A table published in the print version of Gannett’s Journal News on February 18, 2005, provided by data from the US Census Bureau and The Brookings institute illustrates that 90.8 million Americans earn less than $19,999.00 per year.   By the same table this represents 32% of all wage earners in the United States.  This means that for a family of five (mom, dad and three children) headed by a single wage earner  to share the American Dream many of grew to believe we were entitled to …is all but impossible without public assistance like food stamps. Even with food stamps it would be an extremely difficult financial choice for mom to stay at home.  This part of the American dream is a pipe dream for approximately 40 million American families.

Director of Corporate Communications for Wal-Mart, the nations largest employer and proponent minimum wage status quo, Sarah Clark claimed in reply to a January 3, 2005, Nation article by Liza Featherstone that their average full time employees make almost twice the Federal minimum wage, which at $10.30 per hour, not the $8.00 Featherstone asserts, assuming almost means $10.25, at 40 hour per week employee would make $21,320.00.  It is again clear that family with three dependent children remains under the Federal poverty line with one wage earner employed full time at Wal-Mart and a scant $37.00 per week over the poverty line with two children..

Further this illustrates how far afoul of economic reality federal minimum wage laws have become.  Even two parents working full time at the minimum wage ($21,424.00) with three children is still earning below poverty line for a household of five.

Webs forums like momsview.com help illustrate the real cost of feeding a family in America today.  From forums like these one can gather very frugal shopper today may, that is may, be able to feed a family of five on $200.00 per week but many on that site state they often sacrifice balanced meals to stay with a budget and not stray from a coupon, clipping, buy on sale only regimen.  A sad state when over 70 million American wage earners do not earn a wage that is not even at or about the federally stated poverty level.

The wage that Wal-Mart’s Ms. Clark is proud to mention is just $48.00 per more than a family with two full time minimum wage earning bread winners, less than 10% above the poverty line a fact, Ms. Clark implies that is proud of.  When coupled with the fact that most Wal-Mart employees pay 40% of their own healthcare insurance premiums these families are no better off for having health care.  The annual premium for a plan covering a family of four averaged $9,950, or $829 a month, in 2004, the survey found. Workers contributed $2,661 -- or 10 percent more than they spent the prior year.
 

While our Federal Government strips billions of dollars from food stamp, healthcare and education programs they seem content to ignore the cold hard fact that every year that, while our corporations offshore tens of thousands of the well paying jobs of 21^st Century George W. Bush promised to create in America, not China, millions more American families descend into the institutionalized destitution of the minimum wage.   They are part of America’s future of worsening poverty and under employment.  Whether they know it or not must give up or have already part of the American dream, just to make a living in George Bush’s Wal-Mart economy and live, as close to just barely making a living as one can imagine.

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All Rights Reserved, J.G. Schwam and Liberal Patriot Operating Company, 2005