The minimum wage - is it enough?

When I was born in 1968, the minimum wage was $1.68. Doesn’t seem like much, but its value in today’s dollar is equal to $10.26! At my first job as a housekeeper at a hotel, I earned the minimum wage. I was still in high school, but I maintained this job on weekends and throughout the summers in order to save for college and pay for gas. This was in 1985 and the minimum wage was $3.35. At the time, the purchasing power of my hourly wage was the equivalence of $6.61 today, which is on par with the current Federal minimum wage of $6.55. Since the time of my birth to my first job, the purchasing power of working Americans has decreased significantly, but since the time of my first job, another 20 years has passed and the value of the minimum wage has basically remained unchanged.

Let’s do more math. (C'mon, it's not so bad!) A full-time worker making $6.55 an hour takes in $262 a week, before taxes - for an annual salary of $13,000! Let me type that again - $13,000!!!!!! Add to this that the majority of minimum wage earners do not have access to healthcare benefits at work, or even paid sick days. The sad fact remains that a large percentage of minimum wage workers are no longer teenagers at their first job, but are heads of households, many of them single mothers. Kind of makes you wonder how, on one hand, we can see so much progress within our nation, and on the other, we are frozen in time, if not moving backwards. How do you feel about this?

Share with us your first job, first hourly wage, and what you think the minimum wage should be at this point in time for a working member of society to take care of herself and a family?

Realizing the Promise, part 2

by Leslie Hudson

9 to 5 Atlanta Working Women (Leslie H, Vickie U, Ebony T and Anni M and Shyria C) arrived in Washington DC with the mission of putting Family-Work Place Policy in the building. After we reached our hotel and settled in the lobby the most remarkable thing happen, the room filled with fellow community organizers and we all connected and started sharing our stories. I heard stories about how our common grounds are important in making America better in our communities.

Next stop to lobbying training with the Center for Community Change and the Gamaliel Foundation. I heard wonderful words that brought me to tears and received good information about how to lobby.

The next morning I got footage of a sunrise peaceful protest against United Health Care, an immigration press conference and IL Rep. Gutierrez spoke and then we broke in our groups. Me and Anni headed to speak to our Georgia Representatives Jack Kingston (R), Sanford Bishop (D), and Nathan Deal (R).

My group had the opportunity to speak with an aide to Rep Nathan Deal and I shared my story about being forced to choose between my family and my job and expressed the importance of the need for Family-Work Place Policy because the families are the employees.

I must acknowledge the fact all these activities were accomplished before 1pm; more importantly over 200 community organizers participated.

Final stop, the Realizing the Promise Forum. The forum was like big thank you to all of us organizers for participating and taking back our government. It was filled with awesome speakers , roundtable discussions about a New America and ended with a rallying of our ideas, our missions and our agendas of change.

I left this event ready to return to Atlanta to get more work done, learn more about lobbying and I realize that I can really help to change the quality of life for millions of Americans.

Realizing the Promise

Two weeks ago, Atlanta 9to5 staff & members went to Washington DC for the Realizing the Promise forum. Sponsored by the Gamaliel Foundation & the Center for Community Change (two well-known community organizing groups), the forum & the activities in the days around it were focused on what role organizers can play in bringing change to the United States.

Check out an article on the Realizing the Promise forum here!

Forum attendees identified several key issues that the Obama administration should focus on to help the American people: healthcare reform, immigration reform, economic recovery, and workers' rights -- which is where 9to5 fit in! We took action, we went to a press conference, we attended the forum, and we lobbied on Capitol Hill, urging our Congressmen and women to pass the Healthy Families Act.

If you'd like to see more information about the forum, please visit their website (there's a really great video at the bottom of the homepage that you should check out!). And if you'd like to become a member of 9to5 so you can get involved with activities like this one in the future, please visit OUR website!


Stay tuned for feedback, thoughts, & insight from members who went to Washington with us......