. I'm nearing the end of the book and have been loving it so far. I just wish I had more time to sit down with the podcast, but carving an hour out of any day can be daunting with Marrok, Chesh, and the kids hovering over me. I'm beginning to think I'm just not allowed a moment of peace and quiet unless I'm working on my book!During the podcast Heather made an interesting observation on the chapters we would soon be hearing. She observed that Twain would make a commentary on the state of the economy, something that's still true today. She kind of wished everyone would be required to read these chapters. I have to say, I'm inclined to agree.
In this book, Twain makes a really good point. People talk a good deal about wages. Minimum wage gets a lot of attention these days. When it was $5.12 per hour, people thought it was incredibly low. Now it's up to $7.25 per hour and rising. A lot of people see this as a great thing. Everyone on the low end makes more money, so we must be doing economically better, right?
Unfortunately not. With the rise in minimum wage we've also seen a matching, possibly even exceeding rise in cost of living. For example, when I got to Texas just over two years ago we were paying $2.50 for a gallon of gas and that seemed steep. The gas cost skyrocketed up to nearly $4 per gallon the very next summer. Granted, gas prices drop and rise in a crazy way, but that's how everything is. The cost of living isn't as close to as low as it was back when minimum wage was $5.12 per hour.
I hate to say it, but what we're looking at when we talk about wages is the base wage. We're not talking about purchasing power here. We're not taking a look at how much you can buy with that money. Sadly, the amount we can buy with our dollar is going down faster than the minimum wage is going up. What does this mean? Our economy is going to tank, not because minimum wage isn't high enough, but because the cost of living keeps on going up faster than our minimum wage.
It was proven time and time again that your average family cannot afford to live off of minimum wage. It would take approximately three minimum wage jobs in any given area to cover the cost of expenses to maintain your average home and family with two kids. This isn't even talking about excesses such as car payments and things like that. That should be telling us something.
I've heard a lot of people blame the feminists. If they didn't insist that women work we wouldn't need two incomes just to get by. The problem isn't the feminists, it's our standard of living. Our need to live in excess, create debt for ourselves, and live above our means has caused the need for two working parents in a family. If we could all learn to live within our means, not buy unneeded things, and make the most of our time, perhaps the face of our economy would change. I know it's just food for thought at this point, but isn't that where everything starts?
So what am I going to do? I know there's really nothing I can do about the minimum wage or the cost of living, but I can take a stand and make sure my dollars count. Instead of buying expensive toys for my kids, I'm going to focus on affordable, as I have been. I'm going to watch my personal spending and make sure my money is only going out to things I can actually condone and support. I'm going to make sure the items my family has are quality, even if that means paying a bit more or doing a bit more work. In the long run, it will be worth it. If it outlives it's value, that's all that I care.
In the end, we're not really so much better than all these other countries out there. For a little bit of a shocking reality check, take a look at this article, courtesy of Heather Ordover from CraftLit. Go down the whole list. Pay attention to both the prices, and how much food their family survives off of. You might just be surprised at the degree to excess in which Americans live...
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