Yes raise the minimum wage already!

So come November, on the ballot you will find San Francisco’s Prop J and a similar measure in Oakland advocating the raising of the minimum wage from the ridiculously low $10.74 to $12.25, eventually reaching $15 by 2018. Now, if you live in California I don’t have to tell you because you already know how crazy high the cost of living is. And the fact that anyone believes that you can exist on $10.74/hr does not and most likely has never made that amount and tried to pay rent, bills, had to cloth themselves and children, buy food, gas… need I go on? No? Then you must feel the struggle like I do!

But, there are those who oppose raising the wage. There are those who believe somehow that by doing this it will kill jobs, and make it harder for “poor folks” to get jobs because now it will be harder for them to prove their worth… WTH?? Yeah, I actually read that idiocy in an article on Forbes website.

What bothers me the most about people who try to make arguments against raising it, is the fact that most of them have no idea what it’s like to struggle to take care of yourself and your family. All they “see” is a sea of low income folks, with little education, trying to take advantage of the system. Really people? How about the reality that there are folks like me who have 2 degrees, 3 years of law school, over 15 years of job experience, yet one of my jobs is paying me just a little over the minimum wage. And I’m just one out of thousands of over-qualified folks who are in this position.

I have yet to hear a concise, logical argument why qualified folks should not be paid a wage which will make it possible for them to take care of their families. Apparently in this lovely capitalistic society it’s ok to charge an arm and a leg for housing, it makes sense that decent, edible food is being sold at outrageous prices, and it’s completely reasonable for athletes and reality stars to make millions, but when it comes to us regular folk, who just want to be able to stop living paycheck to paycheck, and have the audacity to ask that our cities and states make it possible for us to be paid an amount that will help make this possible, we’re led to believe that this would be bad for the economy.

So in other words, we should just suck it up and deal with it.

Hmm.. Easy to say when you don’t have to countdown til payday. Smh.