Last weekend my wife and I enjoyed a short get-away in Chicago. We used a wonderful tool called hotwire.com to find an incredible deal on a very nice hotel right in the heart of downtown. We both enjoyed having a few days of schedule free bliss; although if you ask my wife she will tell you that I never did take time to relax; having an iPhone in your pocket makes it all too tempting to stay connected to friends and ministry stuff that simply has to get done. When we arrived in the city we settled into our hotel, cleaned up and immediately took off for our first night’s adventure.
It was during this first night out that I began to see the inequality of equal opportunity in a very stark and glaring way – far more prevalent than I had before. I am not sure why what I saw bothered me so much on this trip; I have seen things like this before and it has always bothered me, but this weekend it was especially troublesome.
Everywhere we went there were service industry workers, and to the person, every worker was a member of a minority community; typically Hispanic or African American. What was bothering me had nothing to do with political or social ideology – rather it had everything to do with spirituality. Something has gone terribly wrong with the system and with the church when 9 out of 10 service industry employees appear to belong to a minority community.
I have heard the arguments that try to appease the situation – the statements like “don’t be so critical, they are just happy to have a job that produces a reliable income.” Oh? Are they really happy? Are you sure? When was the last time you talked with someone that was trying to raise a family, send their children to school and buy a few things more than just the bare necessities of life all on minimum wage?
In Wisconsin the minimum wage is $6.50 per hour. If you assume that each household has two adults working to support the family, that brings the household hourly income rate to $13.00 per hour. If you multiply the combined hourly rate of $13.00 per hour by 2080, which is the average number of work hours in a calendar year – the annual household income for this family would be $27,040. If the household is a single parent home the annual income is $13,520. Try to pay the rent, feed the children, buy clothes, pay the utilities, buy gas for your car, and keep that car in good running order on that amount, let alone all the other expenses that invariably come up each month.
Sadly this is more common than not in many homes within the minority community; I have seen it first hand, far too many times. For eleven years I worked in the employment industry trying desperately to help marginalized people find good jobs that payed a living wage – it rarely happened. We found jobs for people alright, but the employers would not budge on the hourly rate of pay being offered.
Perhaps I am a bit edgy about this having just come back from the Justice Revival in Columbus, OH. I hope that is not the case – I hope that my angst is motivated by the words of Jesus as he read the Temple scroll -
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
I am convinced that the church, if we really desire to be the church, can make a difference in the lives of marginalized workers. There is much that can be done, from mentoring workers toward advancement, to advocating on behalf of the employees, to new job creation through micro-enterprise, and so much more.
The options for us to help in these areas are limitless, if we care enough to get involved. A site that I frequent that provides a broad spectrum of information that you are not likely to hear on the local news is here.
