Impressive Debut of "30 Days" - Living on Minimum Wage

Made sure to watch Morgan Spurlock's new show on FX last night "30 Days".  Morgan is the filmmaker behind the acclaimed "Super Size Me".  Each episode he will investigate what it's like to spend 30 days living in someone elses shoes.

The first episode was about living on minimum wage.  I really wouldn't call that living.

More after the jump.

Morgan and his fiance moved to Columbus, Ohio for the 30 day experiment.  They had to find an apartment to live in and both had to find jobs.  Finding a cheap apartment was tough.  They ended up in a poor part of town that really didn't look safe.  They didn't have a car and had to rely on public transportation.  Morgan did daily temp jobs, while his fiancee worked at a coffee house.  

They had to rely on the local thrift/charity store for basic furniture and a Salvation Army-type store for some clothing and blankets.  

Both had medical issues that require both to end up going to the emergency room, which resulted in huge bills.  

I was a strong show whose message should be shared with children and teens.  Viewers will really get a vivid picture just how low the minimum wage is and how overpriced health care is.

The episode will re-air Friday night/Saturday morning at midnight and on Sunday night at 11:00 pm. I would expect a bit torrent file of the show to be available sometime today on torrentspy.com.

Check out the show web site and Morgan Spurlock's blog.

Update: There's a bittorrent file available at torrentspy.com at http://www.torrentspy.com/search.asp?mode=torrentdetails&id=330167&query=30

•  Good ol' Columbus

  the ol' stomping grounds.  I will try to watch this show, it did look very interesting.  $5.15 * 40 = around $200/week.  I couldn't do it.

  by pacified on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 09:48:59 AM PDT

  •  Make sure to take out tax...

    It's so little money.

    by brendan1963 on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 11:42:36 AM PDT

•  It was a great show...he is the new Michael Moore.

  Proudly showing off his ACLU card, and showcasing Ted Kennedy's crusade to raise the minimum wage year after year to no avail.

  It looks like its going to be a cool series and it reminded me of Moore'd old tv shows which I loved.

  by ablington on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 09:55:56 AM PDT

  •  TV Nation!

      I really enjoyed TV Nation too.

    by brendan1963 on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 11:41:18 AM PDT

•  I saw it

  It was an interesting look at what it means to be poor.  

  These two people barely made it and they were way better off to start than most people would be.  While they didn't have any furniture and had to get it from a charity they did have a decent clothes, a kitchen set up and the knowledge on how to eat cheap and healthy most people wouldn't. They were also very articulate and obviously had a decent education.

  The best part was presenting the simple concept that just cuz you are poor does not mean you are lazy!  

  by Chinton on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 09:58:19 AM PDT

  •  Yes...

    They knew how to budget, and were educated about the consequences of failing to have a budget.  They also started with no debt, and had no costs associated with children.  Most families on minimum wage do not start with such a clean slate.  Imagine if he had a criminal record (good luck finding housing or many jobs), had a child from a previous marriage (hello child support), or she was pregnant.

    And they knew it was only for 30 days, rather than for an unknown amount of time, possibly forever.

    They had it good compared to many of the working poor.

    by TexasDemocrat on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 10:23:44 AM PDT

  •  Oh...

    And one more thing, they spoke English.  That has a value in this society and eliminates a lot of roadblocks...easy to get a minimum wage job if you speak English, your choices are narrowed significantly if you don't.

    by TexasDemocrat on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 12:58:19 PM PDT

•  I watched last night

  and was near tears on a couple of occasions.  The older gentleman who'd worked for GM in 1979 making less money per hour now than he did so many years ago nearly broke my heart.  I thought the show came across as sincere without being preachy--but maybe that's because I'm part of the choir being preached to.

  Next week's episode appears to be about using steroids to get in shape.  There will also be an episode about a Christian spending 30 days as a Muslim that I think will be very interesting.

  by MCL on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 10:00:31 AM PDT

  •  Republicans Are Evil

    On Jan. 1, 1980 the minimum wage was raised to $3.35 an hour...19 days later we got stuck with Ronald Reagan.

    Fast-forward to 2005...25 years...25 YEARS and the minimum wage stands at $5.15 an hour. Yep. Less than a $2.00 raise in 25 years.

    Thank God for Senator Kennedy & a few others who have fought against the Radical Republicans for the last 25 years.

    by Ranting Roland on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 12:55:41 PM PDT

•  re

  I saw it too. Absolutely fabulous. A must watch.

  by cookiesandmilk on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 10:02:37 AM PDT

•  can not imagine a real

  survivor show appealing to the general public. Hope I'm wrong. I was actually quite shocked when Ehrenreich's  book Nickle and Dimed made some headway among the few republicans that I know. The one that recommended the book and actually lent it to me ended up with George anyway... the old, "I trust him" emotional evaluation.

  by oysterface on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 10:05:12 AM PDT

•  Great show

  I really liked the show and I think it hit on a few important points

  1. It is difficult to live on $7/hr, even with 2 incomes

  2. Medical care can ruin you if you are making close  to minimum wage and don't have insurance.

  3. The cost of medicine is way too high. When he was holding his bill for a $40 ace bandage, it think it really hit home.

  If you liked the show, I would recommend reading Nickle and Dimed

  by EKM on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 10:16:02 AM PDT

•  yep...

  I watched most of it (I was flipping between that and Daily Show)...very compelling, if only because he raises the issue and puts that issue in real terms.  If you are against the minimum wage, ask yourself, can you live on $200 week?  That's living.  All inclusive.  Even if you started with no debt.  After watching that show, it was clear to me that it would be excruciatingly difficult.

  So all those people that say, "you can always work at McDonalds", need to know exactly what kind of sacrifice that is if it is your only means of income.

  I think Moore is good at preaching to the choir, which spills to the mainstream at times.  I think this has the chance of preaching to the uninformed, and that has the chance of being really effective.
  

  by TexasDemocrat on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 10:16:45 AM PDT

  •  If only it wasn't on F/X

    I loved the show too, and thought it was very effective about illustrating the multitude of challenges that Spurlock and his girlfriend faced:

    - If I go to the free clinic, I lose a day's wages

    - If I go to the emergency room, I get socked with a $300 fee for just showing up

    - If I work two shifts, I spend less time at home with my girlfriend and the relationship begins to strain

    - If I want more money, I have to do more hazardous work...is the risk of injury worth an extra $2 an hour?<p? - Since I am in a high risk area, I have to pay a deposit against my electricity bill<p> - How can you enjoy yourself on a date when the cost of seeing a movie equals a whole day's takehome pay?

    I applaud F/X for airing the show, but I hope it does well enough to get picked up to a bigger network.

    by I like Ike on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 10:57:37 AM PDT

•  It was excellent

  What hit me was when their relationship started to suffer because of the money he spent on something small.  

  And then the two relatively minor medical expenses costing over $1000.   How does a person dig themselves out of that hole?  

  It was very powerful.  He's fantastic.  

  by confusedintexas on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 10:19:09 AM PDT

•  Absolutely awesome and subversive show!

  I am in total awe of Morgan Spurlock's ability to make the most powerful arguments with a cheerful smile and a positive attitude.  He's a thousand times more effective than Michael Moore (whose work i also deeply respect) because he doesn't use bitter sarcasm and that alienating whine.

  The only improvement I might have suggested to last night's show would have been to show what an incomprehensible mess our nation's social "safety net" has become.  I think a lot of middle and upper class Americans assume that the poor receive all kinds of government handouts and welfare to ease their path in life, and therefore feel that 'enough" is already being done.

  In reality, most of those programs have insanely prohibitive requirements and compliance criteria designed to exclude, rather than include, potential recipients, and whole communities live in Third World conditions a stone's throw from gluttonous affluence.

  I suggest Morgan do a show showing an affluent person in a disabled person's shoes attempting to navigate our self-surviving public bureaucracies to obtain the subsistence benefits allegedly promised under the law, with the true callousness that allows families to go homeless, unfed and without basic medical care every day in this rich country of ours.

  BTW, after watching "30 Days," I catch last night's "Nightline" on child labor, showing 9 year old children here in the united States being forced to work 16 hour days in the fields even when very sick in order to prevent their families from starving.  the tagline of the piece was that this is slavery under another name.

  by wonkydonkey on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 10:29:02 AM PDT

•  Spurlock and Moore

  I was very impressed with the show, for many of the reasons other Kossacks have mentioned here.  People have brought up Moore -- one difference between Spurlock's approach and Moore's is that Spurlock seems to deliberately avoid trying to "solve" any problems -- Spurlock didn't try to get the temp agency to raise their wages (or to organize his coworkers to demand better pay), or get the transit agency to improve its schedule, or to get the hospital to reduce their ER bill.  Part of the explanation, I think is that he's creating a deliberately contrived experiment -- he (or FX) can obviously afford the ER bill once the 30 min wage days are up.  Moore engages with people actually enduring real problems (like the laid-off PayDay employees in The Big One), and then proceeds to try to solve their problem with them.

  Moore gets accused of being a grandstander for this -- but on the other hand, he is trying to show that you can actually fight back and win.  Spurlock did a great job of laying out the kind of pain a minimum wage life can involve, but didn't provide any sense of what someone in this situation can do about it.

  by Pesto on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 11:36:14 AM PDT

•  Wonderful show

  and I just stumbled upon it last night.  I loved how he showed that while the minimum wage has not been adjusted for costs of living increases, but Congress has made sure to increase their salaries accordingly.  Good liberal programming with a smile.

  by redrelic17 on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 12:07:01 PM PDT

  •  What's really surprising...

    is that it was on FX, a Murdoch-owned network.  It surprises me that they would allow this type of show on one of his networks.  They just aired "Oil Storm" several weeks ago that which also wasn't really pro-Republican.  Does News Corp. let the entertainment channels show anything, while Fox News is a scripted GOP mouthpiece?

    by brendan1963 on Thu Jun 16, 2005 at 05:34:52 PM PDT