The Minimum Wage episode opened me to another kind of reality. Here’s the awful truth: I don’t even know what the minimum wage is. It’s one of those things that I try not to think about and so I remain oblivious to. In this episode, Morgan and his girlfriend lived on $5.15/hr jobs for a month. That is somebody else’s morning coffee. They had an argument about buying snacks and pop before a one-dollar movie. She hasn’t bought anything for herself in weeks. She walks to work. When they went out on a date for her birthday, there weren’t any buses past 6pm so they had to take a cab and he ended up spending $20 more than he wanted to that day. When I think of $20, it’s not a huge amount, but when you put in that perspective, that’s the difference between having food to eat for the next week and making magic to survive with what you have.

When we were out at the mall yesterday, it really made me think about what I saw around me. It’s no secret that Scottsdale is where rich people retire, shop, vacation, golf, spa…well, basically, it’s a cash-out city. I got a couple of lip balms from Aveda that cost around $9 each. That’s almost 2 hours of work someone. Some people were carrying paper bags from Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Boss, etc…probably with stuff cost more than what someone else need to earn for 2 months.

One of the scenes in the episode showed them getting groceries. It was Easter, I think, and they were having over a niece and nephew. Morgan (yeah, we’re on first-name basis) wanted to buy treats for them, and his girlfriend insisted that he can only pick two and that’s all they can afford.

I felt so bad when we were at Whole Foods yesterday and a bag of food was $50 and this is already ‘economizing’ our food shopping, plus we have forgotten a few things we needed. And I felt proud that we’re not wasting food as much when we shop there because a) it’s more expensive indeed, especially when it comes to meat and seafood); and b) we get the right amount of food to eat for ourselves. Anyway, still…it came to mind that we are doing this not out of utmost necessity, but as a choice. But what if we don’t have a choice??? And we have to count each penny that we spend to make ends meet? We are lucky and we’re so grateful. However, other people should have the same choices as we have, and be able to enjoy life as we do. It’s sad to think about the disparity.

One of the last things shown in the same episode is the medical bill of more than $500 that he incurred for an arm injury. They showed the couple’s balance as negative $800-something if I remember it right. It is scary to live under that circumstance and it made me think twice about spending.

So yesterday, I just came home with two lip balms instead of bagfuls of things that I won’t end up using anyway. That’s what I call real-life impact.

[via Serious Eats]

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