The minimum wage in Massachusetts and throughout the country, is too low. The minimum wage here is not the living wage for almost anyone in the state. The current living wage in Franklin County, according to MIT’s living wage calculator, is about $11.35 for an adult. Our minimum wage does not match this at $11 an hour, but it doesn’t dip down to the poverty level. For a family of four with one working adult, the minimum wage is the same as the poverty wage and if they were to have another child their income would dip below the poverty wage.
Some people say that when employees work harder, they will get better wages. But this is untrue. People work hard at the same job for years and never get a raise or a promotion. It’s not just teenagers in high school who work for the minimum wage. Single adults, parents, single parents, there are so many people working for the minimum wage who aren’t working for the living wage. As I already said some of these people are under the poverty line, so we need to help. The upper classes often don’t know what it would be like to work for such miniscule wages.
Imagine yourself working for minimum wage. Do you have a family? How would you take care of them? Would you have plans for the future? Where would you live? These are the questions you need to think about. Help raise the minimum wage to a livable one. In order to do this we all need to do our part. Go to rallies, write to senators, and do everything you can in order to insight change for the better. I believe we can do this.
Liam Clancy
Rowe
I took part in the Hands Across the Hills (HATH) meeting covered by the Recorder and, in fact, wrote five pages of notes. I appreciate writer Richie Davis bringing out many voices articulating how the experience changed us.
Here’s insights I heard.
“When I dialogued with the folks in eastern Kentucky this slowed me down and changed my impulse to judge.”
“It opened my world and changed who I talk with.”
“Our dialogue showed me how to legitimize people instead of dismissing them as the other.”
“I was heartbroken after the election and definitely got my heart back.”
“It’s widened me and which issues I care about.”
The majority feeling at the meeting was tremendous success; we’re helping pioneer a broader way to think about bridging and what political impact means. When we listed the many breakthroughs they include a Leverett man mentoring a Kentucky board president and turning around a key eastern Kentucky organization, and launching a second dialogue group – this one focused on race.
Thanks for the front page article trumpeting that Dr. Paula Green and Hands Across the Hills have been honored with a national award.
The questions we ask matter. In these times when basic foundations of civil society are threatened, it takes us off the mark to ask for proof of having impact in changing the world. That devalues heart-to-heart exchange. Changing ourselves, talking to more people, focusing each day on actively living our values, keeps us engaged in meaningful change, and those inter-connections we build truly contribute to restoring community. I learned from Hands Across the Hills the question is – how are we knitting each other together?
Rev. Sarah Pirtle
Shelburne Falls