Working Poor Mired

Dom Helder Camara, the archbishop of Sao Paulo famously said, “When I fed the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why are the poor hungry, they called me a communist.” As I watch the crowds of people gather early at our food pantry every Wednesday afternoon, I increasingly ask myself why so many people cannot afford to feed their families.

We church people take pride in gathering and distributing food to the needy, but seldom ask why in a land of such plenty hunger exists at all.

Of course, the causes of poverty are multifaceted.

Disability, either physical or mental, prevents some people from working. And others, even as unemployment rates have fallen in Northwest Arkansas, still can’t fi nd work. But I’ve noticed that growing numbers of people who come to the church seeking assistance are employed, or come from families where the principal breadwinner is working multiple jobs, but is paid a wage that keeps the family poor. It is apparent that low wages are keeping many hardworking people mired in poverty.

A few weeks ago, a morning news interviewer asked philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates what he thought about raising the minimum wage. He raised common objections about how increasing the minimum wage might lead to mechanization of the low wage earners job, or how raising the wage in one “jurisdiction” might lead employers to move elsewhere, or whether teenagers from wealthy households constitute the bulk of minimum wage earners.

A few minutes later that morning, mulling over Mr.

Gates’ comments in my mind, I stopped at McDonald’s to buy an egg biscuit for breakfast. As the middle-aged woman behind the counter at McDonald’s handed me a steaming cup of coff ee, I asked, “How would it aff ect you if the minimum wage was raised to $10 an hour?” With tired eyes, she looked up from the cash register and replied, “It would change my life. I’m a single mom.

It’s impossible to make ends meet. It would change my life.”

I looked around the restaurant kitchen and at the drive through window for the teenaged sons and daughters of the wealthy that Bill Gates had referenced, but instead saw four other women, one in her 60s, the others maybe in their mid-40s.

“Does everyone here make minimum wage?” I asked.

“Close to it,” she replied.

And suddenly I found myself surrounded by these women, each excitedly telling me how they worked multiple jobs that, on a good week, paid them $300. From their meager check they had to pay rent, utilities, a car payment, and provide food and clothes for their children.

They quickly calculated that instead of $300 a week, raising the minimum wage to $10 an hours would mean that they could make $400 a week. “For me, that would make all the difference in the world,” one woman sighed, while the others nodded in agreement.

So here is my proposal. I have little confi dence that a gridlocked Congress will raise the federal minimum wage. Legislation at the state level appears unlikely to pass. Bentonville is the most prosperous city in the state and it is almost impossible for a minimum wage earner to live here. Let’s change what we can, here and now. If you are a Bentonville employer, pledge to pay no one less than $10 an hour. If you live in Bentonville, ask your city council representative to support a local ordinance to raise the minimum wage.

And if you are unwilling to do either of those things, then just listen to the stories of the working poor.

THE REV. ROGER JOSLIN IS THE VICAR AT ALL SAINTS’ EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN BENTONVILLE.

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