First, a disclaimer:
I do not normally watch Oprah.
I feel a great need to make this statement because I don’t want you, gentle reader, to be confused about my interests and priorities. In general, I find talk shows to be things that cover subjects that end up depressing a great deal of the viewing public, often cover subjects that either don’t mean anything or are only good for gossip, and in general expose the underside of society.
However, when I saw that Friday’s episode was entitled, “Inside the Lives of People Living on Minimum Wage” I thought I would give it a go (being the generous sort of person that I am), if nothing else to observe what sort of things she brought up about it and see what conclusions they have drawn. I have written a few things about capitalism, the poor, and similar things so I have an interest in these issues and the way people approach them. This is definately one of those areas where my beliefs do not align along traditional lines of a liberal mind.
So, I watched the episode, happily time-shifted by our faithful Tivo. This made it all the more tolerable to watch as I didn’t have to suffer through commercials dealing with feminine hygiene and related subjects, suitable for all viewers (gak!).
I’m writing this blog in reaction to it because it pissed me off.
The start of the show reviewed how Morgan Spurlock and his fiancee spent a month living entirely on a wage-hour job in Columbus, OH. Now, Morgan arrived on the scene with his documentary, Super Size Me, which reviews a month of him eating nothing but McDonald’s for all of his dietary income. I have heard that this is an excellent movie and will make you think twice about indulging in some fast food again, but I haven’t watched it because a) I don’t get around to watching movies much and b) dammit, I like my grease. Hot. Fast. And served by a pimply-faced youth. Yee-haw America.
Morgie (may I call you that?) and his fiancee Alex — ok, are you thinking what I’m thinking? They switched names, didn’t they. Sneaky bastards. How often does it end up that the guy has the girl name and vice versa? Honestly. — left their cushy life in NYC and went to Columbus, OH to spend a month as one of the normal working people.
Now, while their insight may have been a surprised to some, by the first commercial I looked at my wife and said, “I don’t feel sorry for them yet.” in a most disgusted tone. Up until that time, the best they had done was to find an apartment and jobs and then spend the balance bellyaching about the perils of living on Jack M. Schitt™ for the rest of the month. Whoop-de-frickin’-do. I have a feeling that going from 120K+ to $5.15/hour hurts a lot there, Morgie, but how about us bastards that make a lot more than that and we regularly live paycheck to paycheck. Gah. You inspire nobody with such trite observations on life; all it does it open our eyes to how much YOU have invested in knowing the world around you. Hef probably got more out of it than me, but that’s probably about the limit.
And Morgie got a job paying $7/hour right off the bad. Don’t bitch. That’s better than some people EVER see. Your ass isn’t all that special, really.
Speaking of his fiancee for a second (the manly Alex), she sure is a whiney little tart for knowing what she was getting into. Oh, wait, sorry — she didn’t know what she was doing, because she had clearly never left the lap of luxury in her life. Morgie at least had the respect to say that his mother kept his ass on a pretty small amount when he was a kid. He gave his mama props for that much at least.
After their first segment, to add insult to injury, Oprah had the gall — the gall — to act incredulous. “What? Not everyone in the world makes $50 gadzillion dollars a day like me? NO. YOU MUST BE SHITTING ME.” Give it a rest. I realize you’re trying to educate others in your shows to the atrocities of the world, but the least you could do is be honest in your reactions and not act like you just noticed that a monkey is humping your leg. You researched this show, talked it over with your compatriots before it happened — you know the outcome. Don’t be a prick in the face of these peoples’ dilemmas, it doesn’t suit you.
The middle segment of the show was a bit more profound, showing real people earning real nothing while trying to live a real life. I had great respect for the people featured here because they were doing really, really well for all of their situations. They had a great amount of spirit and tenacity and I applaud all of that. Every one of those lazy sacks of shit who are sitting on the couch every day while they could be out there and earning a living (however meager) instead of sucking at the tit of humanity should be the ashamed ones in this situation. Look at one of these great people and take a fucking clue home with you, please.
The last segment was that part of the show that made the gall rise the most and caused my wife to have to pause the playback to let me rant and rave about the idiotic statements being made on the tube. It featured a woman by the name of Beth Shulman, who is apparently the vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, a writer for The Nation, and other various roles, including writing The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans. She came on and made some pretty broad and bold statements about this whole “problem” that we’re facing about all these people making not much money.
Besides having heartburn from her truly shocking lack of skill with a lipstick tube, I have a whole series of bitches about this woman’s statements, so I might as well enumerate them here:
- The American Dream should be available to everyone – It already is. The “traditional” American Dream of making a good living for yourself and having a nice is and always has been available to everyone. Notice that I use the word, “available”, and not the word, “possible” — there’s a difference that is NOT subtle here.
Some people entered the adult working system without the proper tools to “make it” higher up on the scale and go for the dream. For this I’m sorry, but you’re screwed. The system cannot right itself in a day and 20 years won’t make a difference in your life, so you’re done. The best we can do for you is to ensure that your progeny has better access to the tools to make it out of the hole. That being said, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink — see my next point.
Some people entered the system and thought that it wouldn’t involve any work, struggle, heartache, passion, perseverence, tenacity, strength, character, or responsibility. To these people, you are also screwed, and I’m ever so glad that you are because you envision an American Dream that consists of me walking up to you and writing you a blank check. Cordially kiss my ass.
Some people entered with the tools and the heart and strength to make it and fell into a pit of accidents or health-related issues or other such situations that slammed you deep into the ground and they just can’t get back out. To those people, I’m sorry, the system should have better things in place to prevent that from happening. I’m not sure we can save you as such, but we’ll give our best shot at saving the next people that come along.
- Raising the Minimum Wage is the Answer to the Problems – No, no, NO, NO, NO, NO, NOOOO! For the four-hundreth fucking time, NO! Everyone thinks that the minimum wage is this great and holy god that if we only invoke its power it shall bring us prosperity and goodness, but that isn’t the case, folks. Raising the minwage will only be a temporary solution that would very quickly be corrected by a raise in prices. We operate in a system called, “capitalism”. In capitalism, instead of a group of people controlling the prices and wages and so forth, the system controls it. It balances itself based on supply and demand and other very fundamental principles that have been studied and observed for time immortal. In fact, if I had the choice, I’d get rid of the minimum wage entirely — the system would balance itself in time. People would refuse to work for below a certain amount and companies would be unable to be staffed under a certain amount.
Oprah, to give her credit, at least made the statement that raising the wage wouldn’t entirely fix the situation — you can’t raise it high enough to give those who work at that level a good wage. Realistically, the government wouldn’t raise it more than a buck or two, maybe three at the most, but that’d be pushing it. Ok, so $8/hour is all that much better than $5.15? Well, around Sheffield it is, but certainly not in other places around the nation. It’s just not the answer to the problem.
And then — THEN! — Morgie had the balls to throw a completely inane and idiotic statement out there for all to mull: “Americans support a raise in the minimum wage. It’s corporations that don’t support the raise, but Americans do.” Well, ok, folks — let’s think this one out. I’ll even break up the statement into two parts so you don’t get lost in the scintillating mindwork that sits behind this:
- Americans support a raise in the minimum wage — By this he means “the public” as a whole, as if corporations weren’t Americans.
~ Well, duh, Einstein, of COURSE they support it. Ask 30 million workers if they would like more money or less money. I’ll bet you wouldn’t find too many people who would say, “Uh, Bob, actually, I’d rather make less. I’m just not up for MORE money. Bloody stuff — who needs it?” This is a meaningless sentence because people are greedy and they’re naturally going to support this.
- It’s corporations that don’t support the raise… – No, REALLY!? You mean businesses don’t want to have to pay their employees more than they are right now? You mean they aren’t fond of the idea of compensating Guido-the-toilet-scrubber with more of a hefty paycheck? SHOCKER.
Truly an inspiring statement there, Morgie.
- Americans support a raise in the minimum wage — By this he means “the public” as a whole, as if corporations weren’t Americans.
- Employers should ensure that every American has health insurance — I disagree, but only partly. I don’t think it’s the employer’s job to ensure that everyone has health insurance. Benefits are exactly that — benefits, not requirements. They should still be given the freedom to grant them or not as their business dictates. There are a ton of smaller businesses that would not make it if they had to cover the cost of health insurance as well as running expenses. Heck, even my dayjob doesn’t cover all of our insurance — they only cover $170 of the $600+ it costs us a month to have the policy.
The REAL key here is to get health insurance DOWN. How do we do that? By making legislation that does away with frivolous lawsuits against doctors and healthcare workers and organizations, for starters. Lawsuits generate a HUGE expense for insurance companies.
Second, legislation needs to be put in place to control pharmaceutical companies. Now, I’m not saying to quench their capitalistic state, just regulate. There has to be some line drawn when a public service is pricing their medications high above the cost of them because the demand is high enough to warrant it. Electric and gas companies don’t get the pleasure of upping their prices in the summertime because people want it badly for their A/C units because that would deprive those of lower income from having that amenity that is considered a pretty important one for good health. In the same way, pharmaceuticals cross the line from a mere product to a life necessity and should be somewhat regulated to avoid bloated prices. This would keep insurance down as well as the companies would be covering less medication cost.
Thirdly, insurance companies need to put steps in place to prevent people from going to the doctor for every single little sniffle and cough. People are seeing far too much of doctors these days and things like letting a fever run its natural course are frowned upon. I regularly get brochures in the mail from my insurance company urging me to not go to the doctor every time I sneeze. These frequent visits pound on the cost of the insurance and make premiums rise. I would even go so far as to say that if you go to the doctor and you are diagnosed with something that doesn’t require medical attention that your visit and drugs are NOT covered by your insurance. It would make people think twice about using the doctor for something dumb. Of course, my first suggestion (limiting liability) would have to be put in place first for those idiots that want to sue because Gma was afraid to go to the doctor because her chest hurt and she died of a heart attack. People are fucking stupid.
- There’s a lack of respect and value for the working poor, and that’s why they’re being paid so low – Bull-fucking-shit. It has Jack M. Squat to do with respect and everything to do with economics. The fact is, the people who do those jobs are doing them because they will do them. If they wouldn’t do that job for that price, the company would have to raise its price. Simple. If I had to shingle my roof and went out to contractors, asking them to do it for $1, I’d be laughed out of town. I would have to raise my price to a certain minimum (defined by current market values, etc.) before anyone would even listen to me, let alone take the job. It’s not that I don’t value the job they do, but I’m going to get the most work for the least amount of money I can, and that’s all businesses are doing as well. If they can get someone to flip burgers for $5.15, good on ‘em. I realize people have jobs at $9/hour and are living paycheck to paycheck, but if they’ll do the job for that amount, then I can’t fault businesses for giving it to them for that amount.
Remember, folks. You cannot and should not place moral and ethical values upon capitalism. It has no room for them except as a tool for gain.
Contrary to the general tone of this rant, I did feel like a few good points were brought up about solutions to this problem. The trouble is that they were overshadowed by idiotic commentary about the greatness of America, Americans making decisions to think a certain way, and overall feelgood, mental masturbatory blanket statements that changed nothing for anyone.- Healthcare needs to change – As stated above (so I won’t repeat), but it’s getting out of hand, even for middle-class workers.
- Regulations about time off need to change – A lot of life is about working, but not ALL of life should be about that. People, in any job, should have the opportunity to have some paid days off. I’m not talking about tons, of course, as that would be a burden on some businesses. But I would be in favor of legislation that said that, along with minimum wage, people must be given 3 paid days off a year minimum. For a worker earning $5.15/hour, that’s $123.60 a year total, before taxes, that the employer would have to shell out. I don’t think that’s unreasonable, and it gives the worker an out for a sick child, dead relative, family emergency, and maybe even a day to enjoy life.
- The rich, while not having to worry about being poor, should at least understand what they’re going through, even if it is their lot in life. This was Oprah’s original point to the show (which I think she missed fairly badly) and it’s a rather noble one. Too many people who ‘have’ don’t sympathize with the ‘have nots’ because they don’t care to know about it. Steering laws and regulations would be better done if the captains knew the plight of the lower decks, so I applaud that.
There are many problems with the working poor and I won’t deny that, but I also say that most (if not all) of them are due to the effects of capitalism. If we keep our heads about that principle, then we can assure that when we make moves to change the system we’re adjusting it in such a way that will be permanent and affect people the best.
