State Senator Marilyn Moore, up for reelection this year, wanted to experience the financial challenges of constituents so she took on a low-wage seasonal job at a retail store last summer. She shares her observations in this commentary that also appeared in the Hartford Courant.
During my first year as a state senator, I championed a bill requiring large, for-profit corporations to pay a fee to the state for every low-wage job they offered. Dozens of workers testified that they just could not make it on wages of $9, $10 or $11 per hour. They told heartbreaking stories of deciding whether to pay for food or medicine or rent or heat. We all hear the stories, but I decided if I am going to propose legislation, then I need to talk with authority and knowledge.
So, last summer, I became a seasonal retail store employee in one of my district’s large stores. It was eye-opening.
They asked how many hours I would be willing to work and I said a minimum of 20 hours a week would suffice. That question had no connection to how many hours I would get. My pay was $9.50 an hour, despite my efforts to negotiate for more because I had sales experience.
At the orientation, trainees got information about being an effective team member, company policies and the importance of not working more than 39 hours a week. They seemed deathly afraid of paying anyone overtime (a laughable $14.25 an hour in my case).
The following week, I worked eight hours, less than half of what a typical part-time employee needs to survive and much less than I expected. I talked with other new employees and realized that none of us received the hours we sought. At this rate, I would need two more jobs to pay bills.
It became obvious that additional hours were not available. This was an issue for most of us, especially for workers who depended on getting enough hours to pay the monthly rent, to buy school clothes for their children or just to keep the lights on.
Much of my work consisted of maintaining the appearance of 15 store aisles, answering questions for customers and occasionally hopping on the cash register when lines became long.
I spent hours bending down to stock shelves, reaching to place products on high and standing to ring out customers, and all for only $9.50 an hour. I arrived home exhausted with aching feet and heavy eyes. I was constantly complimented by my much younger supervisors for doing a “great job” and being a “team player.” But my hard work was not reflected in my paycheck. After two weeks, I brought home $128.50, a total of $257 for the month.
I could not imagine having to take on additional jobs and being subjected to either the same amount of exhaustion or more for such low pay. This, however, is the reality for many low-wage earners. For a single mother with two children, a retail job like the one I had cannot be her only source of income. She would have to leave one shift to start at yet another minimum-wage job, getting home when her children were asleep. Then there is a family of four, where both parents work minimum-wage jobs but have to alternate between morning and evening shifts to ensure that at least one parent is home when the children arrive from school. The stress on families must be tremendous.
The United Way estimates that a four-person family in Connecticut needs a minimum household income of $64,689 to survive. This translates to an hourly wage of $32.34, 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, or two full-time $16-an-hour jobs. Connecticut’s minimum wage is now only $9.60, and finding at least 40 hours per week is almost impossible for low-wage employees. I was never offered enough hours or any sort of regularity so I could find another job.
A survival budget that allows a family to get by does not cover unexpected car repairs, Christmas gifts for the kids, a trip to the movies or the celebration of an anniversary over dinner. Low-wage workers are humans, too.
The consequences of earning such low wages impact both the employee and the community. Earning minimum wage makes it hard to afford quality child care, decent housing, food, transportation and education.
The work of minimum-wage employees has value and they should be adequately compensated. I applaud Gov. Dannel P. Malloy for recognizing a need to raise the minimum wage and I am looking forward to 2017 when the minimum wage will rise to $10.10. Even that, however, will not be enough to support a family.
First off, you stated you were looking for 20 hrs per week which is part time. You got part time hours and not 40 hours per week.
These jobs you and others want $15.00 per hour were never meant to be full-time jobs. Really, do you thing a person loading french fries in a machine turning on a switch that automatically tells when the fries are done deserves 15.00 per hour?
You senator should be yelling about all the companies that left the USA and took their labor jobs with them.
Andy, read it again. She said she wanted a minimum of 20 hours a week, and she didn’t even get that.
So the person who now works 40 hours a week at minimum wage will work 20 hours @ $15 per hour?
I was hoping State Senator Moore would derail the Black Rock Monkey Bridge that will serve just a handful of people at a cost to the taxpayers of close to $5 million, and how many people will really use it?
The state gas tax is over 30 cents a gallon, and how does she stand on the reintroduction of tolls?
The Senator is not responsible for companies leaving the USA and going where labor is cheap. All we can do is yell with frustration that this is the practice of big business. How about giving her credit for doing what no other elected official has done, put herself in the shoes of those who work service-oriented jobs for minimum wage? As the debate continues to raise the minimum wage, there will be one elected official who went above and beyond her commitment to improve the lives of those less fortunate.
Senator Moore,
Sikorsky is closing its doors (600-plus jobs), GE moving to Boston (800-plus jobs), not to mention the local service jobs, for every job that’s lost it affects seven other people. But not one word from State Senator Moore, not even a mailer!
Now she wants to talk about minimum-wage jobs. Senator Moore, is your report for the benefit of those good people who lost their jobs at Sikorsky’s and GE?
Lisa, as an individual Moore is not responsible for companies moving out of the USA but as a a group the Connecticut politicians could say something.
Read the story again she started as a 20-hour employee and not a full-time employee. Gee should we also pay the part-timers $15.00 per hour?
Send all Bridgeport’s kids on a field trip to the gold coast towns next door and tell them this is what they can get with a good education. You can’t get something for nothing, Entitlement Babies.
Let’s start with restructuring the MBR and ECS formulas so the money goes where it is needed most and not into the suburbs and maybe the kids in the urban centers will actually have a shot at a decent education.
Entitlement babies???
Are those the voters who cry every time they hear the word entitlement?
Andy, the only reason those jobs “were never meant to be full-time jobs” was because Walmart and other retailers don’t want to even hear about company-paid benefits.
Walmart hands out applications to the state of Connecticut Husky Health Plan when employees inquire about medical insurance.
They “were never meant to be full-time jobs” because Walmart wants us to pay for insurance so they don’t have to.
Bob, when these jobs originally appeared at MacDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts they were for housewives and high school students. They were not meant to be family income-producing jobs.
This is what the politicians left us, crumbs. Did you know more Fords will be made in Mexico this year rather than in the USA?
So Andy,
If there are no jobs, what is one to do?
And Lisa is correct. There is nothing a state senator can do about jobs shipped overseas 20 – 30 years ago.
The state politicians are responsible for GE and other companies that are leaving CT. They tax the balls off companies and people to fund their entitlement programs and swollen job corp. So yes Bob, politicians like Moore are part of the problem.
Lisa, you are wrong. As a government-elected official she absolutely has responsibility for the policies enacted that drive business (i.e. Corporate taxes, crushing regulations) out of this state and country. As stated above, these jobs were never meant to be jobs to run an entire household. They were supplement jobs and entry level. The only reasons politicians today are pushing the minimum wage increase is to hide the fact their policies kill jobs. If raising minimum wage is that great, why not 30, 40, 50 dollars an hour? It’s all basic economics, not brain surgery, it’s what the market will bear. Milton Friedman proposed no minimum wage, then the consumer will make the choice. Businesses that do not pay a fair wage would quickly go out of business.
Milton Friedman screwed us all.
Oh okay, I got it now, it’s her fault the federal government opened the doors for jobs to leave to Mexico, India, China and a myriad of other countries for cheap labor. It’s her fault the State of Connecticut taxes the hell out of companies so it’s no longer profitable to do business in Connecticut even though she hasn’t completed her first term as a State Senator.
Is it just me or does this sound like Republicans blaming her for everything they can’t pin on President Obama? I understand, no matter what she does it isn’t enough, no matter what she says, it isn’t enough and no matter how emphatic she may be, she isn’t carrying enough. Now here’s the capper, now a decent job that pays a living wage is now a damned entitlement. Ain’t that a bitch.
Well she is partially for companies leaving CT because of the tax structure, check her voting record.
Better yet Donald, ask Q what his answer is. Lower the minimum wage?
Why Not?
Tax Avoidance: $2,200 Billion
That’s $2.2 trillion in tax expenditures, tax underpayments, tax havens, and corporate nonpayment. It is estimated that two-thirds of tax breaks accrue to the top quintile of taxpayers.
Investment Gains: $5,000 Billion
That’s $5 trillion dollars a year, the annual amount gained in U.S. wealth from the end of 2008 to the middle of 2014. In the six years since the recession, for every $1 of safety net costs, $10 in new wealth went to the richest 10%.
Investment income welfare for the well-to-do appears in the form of capital gains tax breaks, which mean zero taxes on deferred investment gains, and zero taxes for most of the investment gains passed along to descendants.
Most Extreme: 14 Billionaires vs. 46 Million Hungry Americans
America’s 14 richest individuals made more from their investments last year than the $80 billion provided for people in need of food.
Clearly, conservative sources don’t tell us the full story. They dwell on the cost of the safety net, emphasizing its accumulating total over several years, while stubbornly ignoring the real problem.
The super-rich feel they deserve all the tax breaks and the accumulation of wealth from our nation’s many years of productivity.
That’s the true threat of entitlement.
Andy, living well off a taxpayer-funded pension plan, says fuck entitlements, fuck handouts, fuck the little people, I’ve got mine.
Lower the minimum wage and fuck ’em all.
Bob, you are right. I am living well because I worked EVERY DAY of my working life. Bob, your dad and I earned our keep by doing things most people did not want to do and we are paying for what we did in our later years. Yes in certain areas I am saying fuck entitlements. We have third-generation welfare recipients and we now feed families three meals a day. Are we doing anything to really help these people? NO we are not. You don’t think losing jobs at GE and other companies is not important because they don’t make French fries?
Did you idiots know construction apprentices make $17 an hour and go to school for five years after a full day’s work? So why not pay the French fry maker $1.00 per hour.
For all the “doubting Thomases” posting here, why don’t you do what Marilyn Moore did and find out what really is going on? The bottom line is most companies/businesses treat their employees like shit. I DARE ANY ONE OF YOU TO DO THE SAME THING. You will find the humiliation and manipulation of how companies treat employees, especially lower-wage employees. It’s a disgrace. Only part-timers are hired with NO benefits and they screw you by playing with your hours. Even full-timers get no benefits because workers’ rights have been eroded and stolen since The Great Communicator Ronald Reagan. NONE OF YOU seem to know what is really going on. A new form of slavery is being re-introduced in the United States. Companies/Businesses don’t give a shit about employees anymore. Companies/Businesses will do anything and everything to screw their employees. It used to be called the Personnel Department. Now it’s called Human Resources, resources to be used and and discarded when their value is used up. Most of you need to update your knowledge of employer/employee relations.
I have. I also noticed most employees treat their companies like shit. Ever since Slick Willy, Bill Clinton, used NAFTA to let all the good jobs go overseas we have to take what is left. If you start at the bottom and fail to move up you can only blame yourself. Not to mention employees who fake injuries, steal, don’t bother to show up or are simply unproductive. You seem to be under the impression you are given a job. That is not true. You earn your job. It is a difference of semantics but there is a difference between ‘earn’ and ‘give.’
Raising the minimum wage will simply encourage more companies to move elsewhere. Why not just raise taxes?
Slavery, my ass. Stay in school and get some sort of education instead of sleeping in every school day. Let’s stop blaming everyone and everything else rather than the lazy ass who created his own problem.
Frank,
Andy, JMart, Jim Fox and Q are the doubting Thomases. Everyone else agrees with Marilyn.
And Frank, 12 years ago I was out of work and picked up a job landscaping, $10 an hour, 50+ years old. Working 60 hours a week. No benefits. So you don’t have to preach to me.
Why is Bridgeport still sending jobs in the police and fire departments that can sustain a quality life to the suburbs? There’s not a police officer or firefighter with five years on the job making less than $70,000 a year and that kind of salary will transform a person’s life. The question Ron Mackey and I have been asking for years, why is Bridgeport in the transformation of suburban lives ahead of its residents?
Hartford has residency requirement for police and fire and simply stated, you don’t have to stay a resident, but you sure as hell have to start out as a resident. Hartford and I believe once residents start making the kind of money that will transform their lives, most will opt to buy a least one home in that city, which is good for Hartford.
Mayor Ganim needs to act with the City Council and put in place the City ability to hire Bridgeport residents only for these Civil Service tested positions because this becomes a win-win for the City. It becomes a jobs program for the City plus receives taxpaying City employees who will shop and live and pay City taxes. The time is now for Mayor Ganim to lead and give the taxpayers and voters a chance to have a real career right here in the city they live in right now (time will tell).
Ron and Don,
Your dime to my dollar says Ganim isn’t going to do squat on residency. He has already proven the BPD is calling the shots in the city and since they don’t live in B’port they don’t care about residency.
Bob Walsh, you make a great point about Mayor Ganim and the Bridgeport Police Union, yes they came out and supported him but they didn’t vote for Ganim because they don’t live here or spend any money here. Bob, let’s be clear, it was the black voter who overwhelmingly came out and voted for Joe Ganim to put him into office but his response to the black community and to all taxpayers in Bridgeport is residency means nothing to him and he won’t help them to serve and protect the great city they live in by allowing only Bridgeport residents to apply to become firefighters and police officers in Bridgeport. Next, there is no reason for females in Bridgeport to vote for Joe Ganim again because Ganim has no problem with no females being hired during Bill Finch’s eight years as mayor and Ganim is using the same process to keep women off the fire department. Think about that, no white female is good enough to be a firefighter? Where are the black ministers and the NAACP? Don’t they believe Bridgeport residents should be given the opportunity to get a career serving Bridgeport? Thanks Joe for nothing, you are showing us what you truly think about the black voter who put you in office, just turn your back on us.
She applied, they chose her. So she simply should not have applied to prevent the outfit from deeming her the most qualified in that hiring round?
This response is in the wrong place. Not meant for Mackey.
Who’s paying the majority of Bridgeport’s bills, not the residents. You need outsiders anyway.
Corey Booker and Chris Murphy publicly documented taking their own money and for a week eating on a SNAP budget, in order to see exactly what their policies felt like. They did not apply for nor take someone else’s benefits to accomplish this. I do not read Senator Moore needed supplemental income. She states she had people testifying their plight who had similar jobs to the one she was hired to do. To many people, her taking this job from someone who needed the income to make rent or food money seems opportunistic and an election-year stunt. Perhaps these people would have more empathy and support for the Senator if she had shown how her budget and lifestyle would have been affected by applying the restricted budget her constituents testified to. Granted she would not have felt the physical exhaustion, which is probably difficult to feel empathy for until it is experienced. Myself, I have mixed feelings about the article. I like Senator Moore, and while I think her actions to get into the trenches to experience what her supporters face every day are from the heart good intentions, the execution did prevent someone in need from getting that income.
Bob, read this blurb from the Post: When it comes to job growth, Connecticut isn’t the worst but it’s far from the best. A recent Gallup poll placed Connecticut among the bottom 10 states on its job creation index for 2015, which polls workers on hiring activity at their place of employment. Connecticut’s ranking makes it the only state to place within the bottom 10 each of the eight years of Gallup’s index.
Here is one for all of you who want to pay a French fry monitor at McDonald’s $15.00. Just a comparison, a bank teller just starting makes $13.00 and after two years may hit $15.00 per hour.
The clerk in your doctor’s office is lucky to make $13.00 per hour, so let’s stop and think about this. Let’s stop reading the bullshit put out by seiu union. I am not saying don’t give them a raise but let’s be realistic.
Andrew, the day McDonald’s or any majorfFranchise starts paying $15 an hour is the day we’ll be paying $16.00 plus tax for three French fries, an ice cube with 20 drops of your favorite drink, and a 2″-diameter burger.
Well look who came over for dinner. Let me start with: “State Senator Marilyn Moore, up for reelection this year …”
Why did it take you six months to share your awful experience? If you really wanted to know what it feels like to earn and live on less than $2.75 per hour in Connecticut, you should have applied for a job as Live-In Nurse Aide. Here is part of the Fb conversation I had with my niece Tamisha:
09/14/2015 4:06pm
Hi tio it’s me Tamisha. I need your help, I mean that’s if you can I am desperately in need of another job. I am working now but I really need something else I work as a live in. I work 72 hrs in 3 days and only get $300. A week. I am away from my family and I hate it. If you know anyone that can help me with a job even a job cleaning I don’t care. Lmk thanks. Xoxo
If you do the math, she was getting paid about $4.15 per hour without a single hour past 40 hours counted as overtime. Why is this? Who is the one refusing to pay live-in aides a fair wage?
“They pay me by check
All the agencies pay the same”
It’s crazy because it’s cheaper for a live-in then it is to have someone for 12 hours a day. The state will not pay to have different people come in and do 3 different shifts.”
I don’t get pay sick days or anything.
I checked and sure enough, The State of Connecticut on one hand forces private companies to pay their workers more. On the other hand refuse to pay live-in aides a fair wage and in fact are paying them 60% less than the old minimum wage. The State saves millions with this racket it has going and you Senator Moore will not even have the courage to get on the blog and explain this.
I see you made a mistake Joel, you meant your Governor Malloy will not even have the courage to get on the blog and explain this. I think that falls under his job description and not the good senator’s. I think you might be better served if you asked her to please look into the assertions made by that young lady.
Why would you want to hold her accountable for something she may not even know about? But I know and you know, you don’t make mistakes!
She voted for approval of the state budget and the increase to the minimum wage. They are not assertions, it’s a fact the state has been able to save millions in health cost. Had Moore and her colleagues paid attention and considered the effects of their bills and actions. Don’t tell me I’m the only one who knew about this practice by home-aid providers in partnership with the state. The young woman I had this conversation with is my niece. I asked a lot of questions. I asked her to tell me of the other home aides working for her employer. What’s their nationality or race. She told me the majority of the women working for her employer appear to be Jamaicans or Haitians. Now you and I know the cat is out of the box. Let’s see what the two State Senators will do about it. Let’s see if they go from “mistake” to misopportunity.
*** YOU GO GIRL, I LIKE THE WAY YOU THINK AND ACT BEFORE MAKING IMPORTANT POLITICAL DECISIONS THAT WILL AFFECT THE REGULAR COMMON FOLK AND TAXPAYERS. MANY POLITICIANS, ESPECIALLY UP IN HARTFORD TEND TO FORGET THE REALITY OF THE COST OF LIVING FACED BY THE AVERAGE FOLK IN CT. *** BASIC LIVING OF LIFE IN THIS HIGH-TAXED STATE OF CT IS AN EVERYDAY STRUGGLE FOR MANY; YOUNG AND OLD! ***