Surviving (or Not) on Minimum Wage

Government surveys show the average price of a gallon of milk jumped from $2.67 in June 2003 to $3.77 in June 2008, and the price of a dozen grade A eggs has more than doubled, from 97 cents in June 2002 to $1.92 in Jun 2008.

The minimum wage increase represents a $28 increase in weekly wages, which is barely higher than the $21.18 increase in money spent on food and gas each week in 2008, according to the Center for American Progress.

"You can't live anywhere in this country on $13,624 dollars a year," says Jason Perkins-Cohen, executive director of the Job Opportunities Task Force in Baltimore, crunching the numbers on what the new minimum wage translates into as an annual salary.

"It's not enough to pay for housing, to put food on the table, to keep your house lit and warm."

Perkins-Cohen welcomes the wage increase, saying that every little bit helps low-income workers afford a few more groceries or higher electricity bills, but he stresses that it's just not enough.

"We can't sit back and feel terrific about ourselves and say we've made a dent in poverty," he explains, adding that many minimum wage workers he knows need to work an extra job or move in with roommates or family members. "We have to find a way for them to move up – should you really be living in poverty if you're working around the clock?"

Barbara Ehrenreich, who tried living for three months by working low-wage jobs in her 2000 book, "Nickel and Dimed," says that she wouldn't survive the same experiment today due to increases in rent, gas prices and food prices. She had to give up her experiment while living in the Minneapolis area, where her $250 a week rent in a residential motel was more than she was bringing home in her $7-an-hour job at Wal-Mart.

"I can't even imagine doing that today," says Ehrenreich. "Not without being homeless and that is a condition that I ruled out. I'm not going to go there."

Beth Shulman, co-director of the Fairness Initiative on Low-Wage Work, says that the minimum wage is at its lowest value in 50 years when indexed to inflation, explaining that it should be more than $9 an hour.