Others have made Diaries and comments about how Democratic congress critters have challenged each other to live on a minimum wage for a week to demonstrate they understand the hardship people face in hard economic times.
Living on a minimum wage for a week isn't hard, They can do a week.
My Social security pays out a little less than $6.50 an hour if you figure 160 hours a month. My wife gets about the same. We get paid once a month and are well above the poverty line with that income.
Lots of elderly people and people on disability share the experience with us. Some make do with incomes below the poverty line. They are still much better off than people whose unemployment insurance has run out. It's the third and fourth weeks of the month after you have run out of money that things begin to get desperate.
Democrats who want to make their case should also have to do the work of a minimum wage, be a yardman in a boatyard, move blocking and jack stands, boats, sawhorses, planks and the pressure washer around all day.
Cover them with plastic or take the plastic off, rig them or dismast them, polish their hulls and topsides until you can see yourself in their reflection
Scrape and paint the bottoms of boats until you look like papa smurf, dress in rags and get covered with noxious foul smelling gook until you look like the bikers with criminal records who actually do that sort of work.
Its better than being a cleaning lady. In neither case do you have the leisure time to look after your family
Maybe if you live in an urban ghetto it costs less to live there but there are gangs, crime, violence, shots fired, drugs, and lots of tears and funerals.
That should be part two of the living on a minimum wage test. Is your home under a bridge? Do you have utilities, running water, a sink, toilet, stove, refrigerator?
To do it properly you have to spend the week living in the food desert of a high crime neighborhood in a building whose roof leaks, who's plumbing and wiring are malfunctioning. At least you won't be homeless, maybe just a little cold or in the south sweltering in the heat.
You have to walk home at least a mile from work late at night on streets full of gangsters, rapists, drug dealers, and police looking to stop and frisk you.
The second week in you have to commit to what you will spend your money on.
Will you spend it on heat, gas for a car to get to work, oil and tires so it will run, fixing its broken windshield so you can get an inspection sticker. You also need to choose between buying clothes, paying the rent, or food.
That's why you are walking to and from work every night along streets that are like running a gauntlet of dangerous risks.
If you are a single mother with young children you can usually go to the town for public assistance. Its embarrassing to have to do that, but you have lives you are responsible for.
Getting a babysitter while you work is out of the question and day care is another expense.
Maybe the six year old can take care of the younger kids while you work.
Usually the second week in you have to at a minimum go to the food bank and there you can get a couple of shopping bags of inexpensive food.
The bills you may get the interest and fees reduced for on the basis of hardship and with no interest slowly pay them down, but its a grind and you still have two weeks to go with no money, no heat and no food.
When you get home from work your work day is far from over. Let's hope everybody is healthy, you don't have to go down and bail any of your kids out of jail, or visit them at the hospital or morgue, all you have to do is cook and clean and fix stuff.
You need to be very handy with tools and keep a junkyard of old cars, plumbing, wiring and boards on the lawn for parts because there is no way you can make an auto mechanic, a plumber, an electrician or a carpenter to do your work for you for free. That is unless you are very good friends.
Now its week three, fifteen days left of if you are lucky and get food stamps as a subsidy. Ramen noodles every day (they won't let you buy cat food on food stamps)
This is the week you scrounge around through the house looking for something you can sell. Maybe the copper pipes that don't carry water through them any more. Eventually you are sleeping and eating on the floor and there is nothing left to sell.
Now comes week four, the week you get to put the lie to the saying there is no such thing as a free lunch. You better find it or else you starve. If you are lucky you can forage some food from dumpsters or if you live in a rural area and its warm weather find a tree with some apples on it.
Will you mark on your calender (you have a calender?) when its time to go vote and have an idea who's running and what the issues are?