{"id":202,"date":"2013-12-11T10:49:47","date_gmt":"2013-12-11T08:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=202"},"modified":"2015-04-27T21:20:41","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T19:20:41","slug":"revolt-of-the-underpaid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/revolt-of-the-underpaid\/","title":{"rendered":"Revolt of the underpaid"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan had some frank<\/span> words for the American people. The manufacturing economy, he said, was on its way out. Rather than try to keep it alive artificially<\/span>, the US would cultivate a service economy.<\/p>\n

This was an excellent use of semantics. “Service” sounds good. It carries an air<\/span> of politeness and efficiency and wish fulfillment.<\/p>\n

It’s only good, however, if you are the one being served. Things look a bit different if you are the servant. You may be reminded of times past, when the rich called all the shots<\/span> and the poor were lucky to scrape by<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Mind the gap!<\/h2>\n

Reagan’s economic policies, all added up, systematically widened the gap between the rich and the poor. Part of the American dream is the idea that a person can start out poor and climb the ladder of success<\/span>. But when more and more rungs<\/span> are added to the ladder, you can climb all you want and never get to the top.<\/p>\n

The thousands of fast-food and retail<\/span> workers who participated<\/span> in protests in 100 cities<\/a> last Thursday aimed to call attention to this.<\/p>\n

America has a national minimum wage<\/span>, but at $7.25 (\u20ac5.27) per hour \u2014 before taxes \u2014 it is low compared to other industrialized countries. Wait staff<\/span> are allowed to be paid as little as $2.13 (\u20ac1.55) an hour, with the expectation that tips<\/span> \u2014 which are not included in the price of food and drink \u2014 will make up<\/span> the difference.<\/p>\n

One argument against raising the minimum wage, or against having a minimum wage at all, is that society needs negative examples: If you don’t pay attention in school, don’t learn any skills, and don’t show any motivation, you shouldn’t expect any more than the bare<\/span> minimum.<\/p>\n

Another argument is that the minimum wage is often only a starting wage, earned mostly by high-school students, high-school dropouts<\/span> or others just entering the service industry. If you are still living with your parents, the money is acceptable. But if you’ve moved out and started a family<\/a>, you won’t make ends meet<\/span> even if your pay has risen to $11 an hour. The protesters last week therefore demanded $15 as a wage they could live from.<\/p>\n

Expectations have changed<\/h2>\n

Adjusted<\/span> for inflation, the US minimum wage today is the same as it was in 1950 \u2014 but the money doesn’t go as far, because expectations have changed. Poverty today is not the same as poverty then. People are used to more living space, and indoor plumbing<\/span>, refrigeration, and access to information through television are considered necessities. What people don’t have much of anymore is the mobility offered by public transportation in 1950 \u2014 so add an unreliable<\/span> used car (along with gasoline<\/span> and insurance) to the list of expenses.<\/p>\n

One of the side-effects<\/span> of Reagan’s economic transition<\/span> was that the workers in manufacturing generally belonged to unions<\/span>, whereas most of the service-economy workers don’t. Their strongest representation is in the Service Employees’ International Union (SEIU), which has fewer than two million members, some of whom are in Canada (hence<\/span> the term “international”). By helping to organize protests such as those last week, however, the SEIU has been giving a voice to those at the very bottom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan had some frank words for the American people. The manufacturing economy, he said, was on its way out. Rather than try to keep it alive artificially, the US would cultivate a service economy. This was an excellent use of semantics. “Service” sounds good. It carries an air of politeness and efficiency and wish fulfillment. … >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[97,75,77,146,99,179],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1637,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions\/1637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}