Enough To Eat

 There was a time when, if somebody had asked me, I would have jumped at the opportunity to make fifteen dollars an hour. A six hour shift at Arby's. for example, would have put ninety dollars in my pocket before someone came and took money back out of my pocket for taxes. But still, it would have been quite the boost. This would have been a time when the rent I was paying was on a one bedroom apartment. The groceries I was buying were subsidizing the roast beef sandwiches I was getting for each shift and the regular drop-in dinner at my parents' house. That stop would have most likely included a chance to do a load of laundry instead of spending my quarters in the facilities in the basement of my building. This would have been a time when the cars I was driving were purchased for less than a thousand dollars, and the gas I was putting into the tank would have cost me just above a dollar per gallon. 

Fifteen dollars an hour? You bet. 

But that's not what happened. The jobs where I earned minimum wage paid me just that. The minimum. When I finally climbed up that metaphorical ladder to become the manager at a book distributor, I was finally making enough money to buy the occasional Arby's sandwich for myself. Not that I did, but I could have. Because I was finally making more than the minimum wage. Which meant, in California, I was able to afford that one bedroom apartment and start thinking about expanding my family. I have mentioned in this spot before that the circumstances that led to me and my wife being able to put a payment down on a house began with the untimely death of my father. The chunk of change that accompanies the passing of a loved one should be put to some good use. Thus, another rung on that ladder toward comfortable was achieved. 

When I took the big jump into the salaried position of teaching at a public school, some of the fear of getting by went away. Only to be stirred up by the occasional contract dispute or strike that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with my fellow union members. Which isn't exactly true, since I have been able to ride the escalator of an organization that looks after its members and pays active attention to things like cost of living. I would love to think that the hourly rate that I now enjoy is both commensurate  with my skills and abilities as well as geared to the realities in which I live: early twenty-first century professional in California's Bay Area. 

I can now make it on my own. My son does his laundry in our basement. A college graduate himself, he flinches in anticipation of rejoining the workforce once the swirl of economic despair and global pandemic slows to a point where he might find work that would pay him fifteen dollars an hour. Or more. Because fifteen dollars an hour is the minimum he should expect when gas now costs upward of three dollars a gallon and a Classic Beef 'n' Cheddar costs more than five. 

And aren't we all just a wee bit tired of having millionaires telling us what we can afford to live on? I wonder when the last time Joe Manchin was in an Arby's.