Living Wage Assignment

Anghelle Anderson
Gov/Econ- Legg
September 23rd, 2021
Waging a Living
A) Living wage is similar to minimum wage in terms of providing a limit to the minimum
amount of money a worker can legally be paid (1). Wages for workers are set by the
“market forces of supply and demand,” meaning as that higher demand for a product
means higher supply, which equals more money and vice versa. To determine a sufficient
living wage for providing for a family and sulf-sufficacy, the governement draws on
these cost elements and the rough effects of income and payroll taxes (3). Unfortunately,
due to lack of education and experience, low-wage workers have a reduced demand for
labor as opposed to the high-wage workers (2). Currently, President Joe Biden has
proposed a $15 minimum wage for federal contract rulers. He states that “Nobody
working 40 hours a week should be living below the poverty line" (4), which data shows
there has be a 50% increase of workers living below the poverty line in the last 20 years
(5). Housing costs have tripled while wages for the bottom 20% of workers remained the
same, making it incredible difficult for low-wage workers to provide a home and basic
necessities for themselves and their families, which contributes to the fact statistic of 78%
of low-wage workers not being able to afford or have health insurance.
B) In the public eye, workers tend to live up and meet the expectations and requirements that
their jobs require in whichever way they’re most capable of. For example, the
documentary highlighted the life of a man named Jerry Longoria, who was a doorman
and security guard at various high-level buildings in San Francisco. In public, Jerry
always made sure he was dressed accordingly for his job in suits, dress shoes, etc. You
wouldn’t have guessed that he had purchased them from Goodwill, which is the only
place he can afford to purchase clothes. Jerry’s low-wage salary means he has low funds
for necessities such as food and clothing on top of the cost of rent.
C) The filmmaker is attempting to bring awareness to the true struggles that come with being
a low-wage worker and how a “living wage” really isn’t so liveable when you’re barely
living paycheck-to-paycheck. These families depend on their jobs to provide for their
families and not all of them have the option to go back to school and get an education or
simply get a better paying job, but that doesn’t mean these workers are any less deserving
of being able to provide basic human necessities for themselves and their families. The
filmmaker is also trying to push the importance of education and how that strongly
influences out ability to get good paying jobs in the future. In the film, Barbara Brooks
was working a full time job and was going to community college to further her education
in order to meet the qualifications needed to get a higher paying job. Furthering your
education is extremely important when it comes to acquiring higher paying positions.
Workers with an AA tend to earn 30% more money that workers with just a high school
diploma, which earns them about $26,795 on average (5) [This has increased to $43,654
as of 2021] (6).
D) PBS is different from commercial TV because it strives to provide the most trustworthy
news and information without any sort of apparent bias. PBS is also not afraid to show
the real (and not always pretty) truth behind certain topics, such as the true effects the
living wage has on low-wage workers. PBS doesn’t have to worry about losing money
for doing so either, for they are a private, non-profit media source who receives funding
from their actual viewers who donate (9) so they can receive more real content, unlike
commercial TV, which has to appeal to advertisers in order to keep their federal funding
(10).
E) Some good examples of questions to add would be:
1. How does the living wage affect people differently? (Single parents, men, women,
etc.) Include statistics from the video.
2. What sort of influence do unions (such as the SEIU) have on the lives of low-
wage workers?
Work Cited
1. Explainer: What exactly is a living wage?

https://fbe.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/explainer-what-exactly-is-a-living-wage
2. The Cost of a “Living Wage”

https://scholar.harvard.edu/mankiw/content/cost-living-wage
3. About the Living Wage Calculator

https://livingwage.mit.edu/pages/about
4. What did FDR mean by a Living Wage?

https://publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/blog/posts/what-did-fdr-mean-by-a-living-
wage.htm
5. Waging A Living Film
6. High School Diploma Salary

https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/High-School-Diploma-Salary
7. The Living Wage Movement and its Ties to the Labor Movement
https://faculty.wcu.edu/studentanthology/writing-across-western/anthropology-
and-sociology/the-living-wage-movement-and-its-ties-to-the-labor-movement-by-
hailey-sneed/
8. On the Road to a Liveable Wage

https://pj.news.chass.ncsu.edu/2018/08/13/on-the-road-to-a-livable-wage/
9. CPB FAQ
https://www.cpb.org/faq#:~:text=PBS%20is%20a%20private%2C
%20nonprofit,member%20stations%2C%20distribution%20and%20underwriting.
10. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting: Federal Funding and Issues
https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RS22168.html

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How does the living wage affect people differently?

What influence do unions have on the lives of low-wage workers?

Anghelle Anderson

of low-wage workers not being able to afford or have health insurance.

education is extremely important when it comes to acquiring higher paying positions.

E) Some good examples of questions to add would be:

etc.) Include statistics from the video.

1. Explainer: What exactly is a living wage?

2. The Cost of a “Living Wage”

3. About the Living Wage Calculator

4. What did FDR mean by a Living Wage?

5. Waging A Living Film

6. High School Diploma Salary

8. On the Road to a Liveable Wage

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