Living on Minimum Wage
No, I wasn't referring to myself. Lol.
Last week I watched the Australian premiere of Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days: the first episode was on minimum wage.
The synopsis from FX:
The day after the Oscars, nominee Morgan Spurlock and his fiancée Alex uproot themselves from the financial security of their fabulous New York City lives and move to the struggling heart of the Midwest - Columbus Ohio - and work at multiple minimum wage jobs for 30 days. Their effort to make ends meet is further complicated when Morgan's nieces come to live with him and he explores first hand what it's like to feed and support a family while living on a measly $5.15 an hour.
I was thoroughly glued from the first scene to the last - Morgan Spurlock being one of my all-time heroes notwithstanding.
It was interesting for me, coming from a Psych background, to see the psychological effects that living on minimum wage had on Alex, when the kids came over for the weekend. The shift in mindset seemed rather dramatic, which I suppose might have been made more pronounced by the fact that they'd been used to living in Manhattan.
It angered me that the Congress has been refusing to increase the minimum wage since 1997, and yet has had the audacity to grant itself a US$27,000 pay raise - over the same period. So-called protection.
It was heartbreaking to see how American citizens of certain socio/economic/ethnic backgrounds are so vulnerable when it comes to health, in particular. It is ironic - and so unjust - that those who need safety nets the most are precisely the ones most denied access to them.
I'm curious about the impact that this episode had on the campaign/movement pushing to increase the minimum wage in the States. (Feel free to inform me.) Meanwhile, I leave you with an anti-establishment (by coincidence, of course) discussion on 30 Days. Enjoy.
***
This week's episode is on the anti-aging obsession. I'll be looking forward to it.
Technorati: 30 Days, Spurlock
ao longo de garota a 23:57
4 Comments:
Fight for better wage levels in singapore then...
Bloody hell, there's not even min. wage floor in singapore!
You gave up your Oz citizenship for an Sg one, so better start making contributions where it is in your power to do so! No point trying to fuss over your sphere of concern when you can actually greatly impact your sphere of influence.
Pissed off,
Corporate Manwhore
19/10/05 23:27
Coughs...unfortunaelty many young uns in Singapore don't even undertand why min. wage is a necessity.
Just look at Oikino, Wannabe Lawyer's stance on the free market economics. And you have young people like rench00 who might possibly says that it is against the anti welfarism stance of the establishment.
How to change mindsets when the young people are quite fixed on their mindsets?
Hopefully my rant will be proven very wrong.
20/10/05 01:10
*sigh* I suppose there's no chance in hell for a Malaysian cable screening of 30 Days any time soon? :(
20/10/05 17:51
Corporate Manwhore: hey, there's nothing stopping you - being on home soil - from starting the ball rolling. ;)
beach-yi: i think it's good to have a diversity of flourishing ideas. what brings us together and working towards understanding and progress, then - and i've been using this word a lot lately - is dialogue. (among a host of other things ;))
burn666: fingers crossed for you, mate!
21/10/05 03:43
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