Nine states and a number of cities have minimum wage laws higher than the federal standard. It’s the federal $5.15 minimum, however, that sets a legal floor for most of this country’s workers. A floor that guarantees a full-time minimum wage earner an annual income of $10,712.
The Minimum Wage Poem
You don’t have to be a scholar or sage
To know you can’t live on the minimum wage.
When five bucks and change is your hourly pay
You ain’t getting by on an eight-hour day.
With a job such as this, there ain’t no assurance,
No work loss protection, no paid health insurance.
That old fav’rite kiss off, ‘Go take it and shove it,’
No option for you, you take it and love it.
So you work at two jobs while your spouse works a pair,
And that covers your nut and there’s something to spare,
‘Til one of you sickens, or you have a new kid,
Then your life once again takes a slippery skid.
Its never been fun getting by at the bottom,
That day-to-day struggle has always been rotten.
What’s new ‘bout this present-day low wage constriction,
For ever more folks, it’s a life-long affliction.
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