7 Days @ Minimum Wage: ‘On the Borderline of Homelessness’

by Mike Hall, Oct 28, 2006

In Cleveland, Amanda struggles to take care of her basic, everyday needs on the $5.15-an-hour minimum wage she earns. But she says that she dreams one day she’ll be able to “live a regular life”—if the minimum wage is finally raised for the first time in a decade.

Amanda, who is featured in the sixth installment of the video blog (vlog) “7 Days at Minimum Wage,” says earning minimum wage means:

You’re barely, barely making it. You’re on the borderline of homelessness or not having enough food.…It’s hard, it’s real, real hard, by the time I get the stuff I need and have to have—like get my clothes washed and groceries, my bus passes to get back and forth to work, I don’t have enough to do stuff to my house…lot of repairs need to be done to my house. I don’t enough money to do it.

Sponsored by the AFL-CIO and ACORN, the vlog will run through Election Day at http://sevendaysatminimumwage.org/. The 7 Days vlog event was scheduled to end Oct. 30, but we’re extending it after getting an overwhelming response. The stories have received more than 10,000 video views, won daily honors on YouTube and have been picked up by the mainstream media and the blogosphere alike.

Amanda, who lives on her own, says that both her parents are also minimum wage workers.

They’re barely making the mortgage payment and paying the bills and groceries. I feel once that (minimum wage) goes up they’ll both be able to make it. It would be a big difference in my family’s life.

It would be a big difference that is long overdue. Comedienne Roseanne Barr, who introduces each interview, says before Amanda’s story:

To everybody who thinks that living on the minimum wage is a matter of choice. The only choice is up to Congress and they left Washington, this year without raising the minimum wage for the 10th year in a row.

When the minimum wage is finally increased, and Democratic congressional leaders promise that will be one of their first acts if they win majorities in Congress this fall, Amanda says that means she will:

…Be able to just go out one day and go to the movies or go out to dinner go…probably be able to live a regular life. That’s why its real important for people to get out and vote.

Along with voting for candidates who will work to raise the minimum wage, voters will have the chance to raise the minimum wage in six states on Election Day. The AFL-CIO union movement has spearheaded the America Needs a Raise campaign to raise the minimum wage at the state and federal levels. The campaign has provided momentum to put the issue on the ballot Nov. 7 in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Ohio.

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