In today’s world, minimum wage, in my opinion, does not generate the same negative opinions that it did in the past. Today, in the face of the high unemployment rates, many American’s would rather work a minimum wage job than face unemployment, loss of their homes, and face the inability to feed and clothe their families. While I do believe there are still those that look down on people (especially adults) who make minimum wage, there is a much larger acceptance in today’s America.
The Senate race here in Wisconsin, as with elections throughout the country, focus largely on unemployment, tax credits for working families and small business and how to create more jobs. Both candidates, Russ Feingold and Ron Johnson, feel they have the answers. And, depending on your political views, and whether you are a Republican or Democrat, influences how much you believe the ads you see on TV, print and on the internet. If you are undecided, these same ads can influence how you vote. What either will accomplish if elected is an unknown. They don’t call them campaign promises for nothing!! What a candidate promises and what they deliver are typically two different things.
With all this said, neither Russ Feingold nor Ron Johnson live on minimum wage, worry about where their next meal is coming from, health insurance and living paycheck to paycheck. As with Barbara in Nickel and Dimed, until she had actually lived the life of a person making minimum wage, she had no idea of how hard it really was. Barbara learns, through first-hand experience, while working more than one job, what obstacles face the poor, such as low wages, housing and being treated rudely. That is something most politicians need to experience and understand if they really want to help the poor, and maybe they should all be made to live and experience what Barbara has in her experiment/assignment. Things would probably change a lot quicker and for the better if this was a “requirement” of the job
