YES! But only if you get lots of government assistance.
9%
NO! Cost of living far exceeds $7.25 an hour.
91%
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Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
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Living on minimum wage can give you a good picture of what it's like for seniors living on only the Social Security they worked and paid for. In my grandmother's day it was tight, but she got along well. She was able to get into senior housing. Lets hope the powers that be will keep their hands off the benefits we have earned.
In Washington state the minimum is quite a bit higher, but many employers don't employ full time, or have a habit of hiring for a probationary or training period, then laying off to avoid paying benefits.
It may be necessary to boycott some of the companies that cause or back anti-labor/worker issues, and many issues. We can speak loudly with a lack of patronage and be heard more powerfully than just marching in the streets.
In 1976 I started a union job in the trucking industry. My starting pay was close to $7.50 per hour. In 1983 I had a job transfer to my company's general office in the Denver, CO area and was earning slightly less then $12.00 per hour, plus full benefits for which I paid nothing. Trucking was de-regulated in 1978 and the competition began, then in the 1980's, while i still had a job, raises were infrequent and small, especially since i was no longer union. By 1995 when my job ended due to a merger and relocation I was earning around $15.00 per hour. Then the fun began. I was 55 years old, had no personal computer use so found it difficult to return to the accounting I had done prior to entering the job in trucking. I had been a certified claims analyst at the end of my job and then found that local carriers wanted to pay me 1/2 of what I'd been earning and I laughed and refused. I need to point to that in the mid 1980's in CO the prevailing average wage was around $6.50, but I saw that go down by $1.00 per hour by the mid 90's, so when I had to look for a job, at age 55 and after 20 years of not having to hunt for work, I had a bit of a shock. I had never had a problem finding work in my life. I eventually took a job with Accountemps and bluffed my way into temporary jobs that I found quite easy, got good comments back from employers and eventually wound up with a job in 2000 making about what I'd earned in 1995, $15.00 per hour. I was a single mother who raised two daughters, who by then were grown and gone. I was lucky. Fast forward to age 63 and my move to Arkansas for future retirement in a modest gated community in the Ouachita Mountains and looking for work for a few years until I could collect SS, which I got at 65, plus Medicare. For 2 years I had no health insurance and thank God that I'm healthy person. Hardly any jobs in the area that I wouldn't have to drive 25 miles ea way to get to, if I could even get a job, then a Walmart opened near me and I applied. So, imagine my shock when they quoted $6.25 per hour starting wage in 2004 when I'd made $7.50 per hour in 1976. I opted for the over night shift to earn an additional $1.00 per hour and took Sundays because they also paid $1.00 per hour more on Sundays. When I left in 2008 I was earning around $9.60 and working part time, but by then I didn't need the job, just did it for something to do. I struggled to make it on full time pay from 2004-2006 and had to withdraw from savings to pay for the annual car insurance or anything extra and I had a very low mortgage at around $300.00 per mo, although I had a high car payment of $374.00 per mo at that time, but no other bills, other then the normal. It was just me, so I didn't understand how people who children could do it on minimum wage. This was a little long, but you can compare wages, through my story over a 30 year period. Oh and by the way, I recalled in the late 1990's that a local news station in Denver reported that a single mother with 2 children needed to earn at least $16.50. I never forgot that because it was more then I was earning at the time.