LIVING ON MINIMUM WAGE

Yesterday, I stood in line for over two hours to submit my daughter's paperwork for both food stamps and medical assistance.

I looked around the room, and saw a lot of different faces.

Some were really young - flamboyant and gleeful.

Some were old and ashamed.

A lot were indifferent - this was a regular thing with them.

I don't know all their stories.

But I know my daughter.

She's 33.

She is learning disabled; she's not the sharpest tool in the shed, as the expression goes.

She has had surgery on her foot - she walks with a cane.

And she works fast food - at minimum wage.

She normally gets, at the best, twenty hours a week.

It's the best she can do.

So when you talk about cutting food stamps - you're talking about my girl here.

Not everyone on minimum wage is supporting a family.

But two of Joy's co-workers do.

It isn't as easy as looking at someone spending food stamps while talking on a cell phone with a manicure, and think it isn't really needed.

It isn't labeling minimum wage jobs as only "starter" jobs - if you work hard enough, you'll climb the employment ladder.

For some people, this is it.

And for my daughter, this is it.

SELECTIVE SCRIPTURES

The Relief Society lesson Sunday was from President George Albert Smith's teachings.

Our teacher, a simply lovely person, did a wonderful job of sharing quotes from the manual and encouraging discussion from the group [sidebar: it's frustrating when a teacher asks a questions and then won't allow that semi-awkward time for it to settle in before she answers the question herself - this sister was much braver than that, and I loved it].

But I couldn't help but notice one class member's reaction the following quote.

Our Heavenly Father … said long, long ago there were idlers in Zion, … and he said, “He that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer.” [D&C 42:42.]

It was more than a smug look - it was a superior gleam, looking down the nose at those "idlers." And the next part of of the quote I don't think she even heard - 

I am assuming that he did not mean those who cannot find employment, and who are legitimately trying to take care of themselves. I am assuming that he referred to the habit some people get into of leaning upon their neighbor. … 

As a whole, our congregation is pretty well off.

Most of our ward's area is single-family homes, zoned rural, so we each even have a little bit of land. We include one low-income area, but again, mainly self-sufficient families.

But I think we needed to hear this:  And whatever we do let us not make those who require assistance feel like paupers. Let us give what we give as though it belonged to them. God has loaned it to us. Sometimes we who have accumulated means [act] as though we think it belongs to us. Everything that we have, our food, our clothing, our shelter, our homes and our opportunities are all given to us... (And) if we will … impart of our substance ...we will obtain from him who lives on high the blessings we need in our day

Political comments are made about how 'lazy' people are on welfare - how they 'depend' on the government instead of going out and working.





I want to ask anyone who makes these observations - have you ever been unemployed for any significant amount of time? Have you ever had difficulty feeding your family? Have you ever been homeless?

And isn't there an great line from Christ, about judging not?