Minimum Wage Hell, Ohio

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 23:57

Earlier this month I received a letter from MoveOn dot Org's Ben Brandzel asking if I would help get a minimum wage raise on the Ohio Ballot. Before becoming an ex-pat living in the Capital of Nowhere, otherwise known as Brussels, I was a minimum wage retail laborer in Central Ohio. Due to my past life on Ohio being my last US address I still retain voting privileges there - not that Ohio like Florida isn't prone to Republican based vote rigging... But that's another blogette for another soggy day. Today I am ranting about being asked by those MoveOn do gooders to sign a petition to raise minimum wage in the sorry state of Ohio to, get this (US dollars) 6.85! I am sorry but I refuse to sign my name to such a preposterous and insulting petition! Minimum wage retail laborers are human beings and citizens and residents of the United States of America - they deserve much better for their work and I cannot sign my name to such a preposterous petition. Ohio, last I heard, was a state in the worlds foremost economic powerhouse - therefore minimum wage should reflect this - in Ohio you need at the absolute minimum 9 US dollars an hour to pay rent, feed yourself, and keep mobile in a state without even rudimentary attempts at public transport or health care to say nothing of education. If you expect the working poor to insure their automotives, health and homes themselves they are going to need 15 US dollars an hour.

If ACORN the minimum wage advocate henchmen and women want to come up with a bold petition that I would be proud to affix my name to I will sign that - but a US dollar 6.85 minimum wage is an insult to the decent people working a shit job.

Here is my answer to the ACORN petition. By the way what the fuck kind of name is ACORN - I mean squirrels working for acorns make more of a justifable and dignified living than minimum wage labor in Ohio.

Here is how I signed MoveOn's/ACORN's minimum wage petition…

Listen - I am so far left of center I am an Anarchist at heart but I refuse to sign a petition to raise minimum wage to a measly $6.85... Is this for real? Is this 6.85$ a joke? My God you can make better wages in Pakistan and Yemen teaching English without certification! When the petition is for a slightly more reasonable $9 - $15 dollars an hour I will proudly sign your petition! This is a statewide and national disgrace - 6.85$ an hour - that isn't even realistically above the poverty line!

Matthew J. Crouch former central Ohio minimum wager - Worthington Public High School Graduate - and disgruntled OSU graduate now happy ex-pat contrarian in Belgium.