Minimum Wage at Its Maximum

Ever since the beginning of this year when I started my job as a teacher's aide in my Hebrew school, I have been more aware of the news about minimum wage in the United States. According to a recent article from the BBC, the future looks very promising many for minimum wage workers, especially after "the Seattle city council has voted unanimously to raise the city's minimum wage to the highest level of any major U.S. city-$15," (BBC) which is over twice the national minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Personally, I hope that the rest of the country follows in suit and votes to raise the minimum wage.

Seattle is not the only U.S. city that is attempting to raise their minimum wage. California, Maryland, and Connecticut have recently passed laws that will increase their wages to $10 or more per hour. Also, on a national level, President Obama has proposed a $10.10 minimum wage. (BBC) However, most states still have minimum wages that are much less than $10, which is not really "livable," meaning that it is almost impossible for someone to support themselves and pay for basic expenses, let alone provide for a family, while earning such meager wages.

Image source: BBC

At my job at my Hebrew school, I currently earn $8.25 per hour (the minimum wage in Illinois) before taxes, which is a good amount of money for me. Although Illinois currently has one of the highest minimum wages in the country, it is still not nearly a "living wage." For people who work minimum wage jobs and support their families, even one of the highest minimum wages, $8.25 per hour, is only $66 (before taxes!) for an 8 hour workday. Less than $66 for all FULL DAY OF WORK is not even close to enough to pay for basic expenses such as rent, food, gas, clothes, etc. As a result, many minimum wage workers work 2 or even 3 jobs 6 days a week to support their families. Clearly, the idea that working class people who earn minimum wage often have to work serval jobs to make a sufficient living goes against the American Dream narrative where anyone can succeed with "hard work and little bit of luck." Even though working class people work hard and earn an honest living, they are still very unlikely to become wealthy and climb up the socioeconomic ladder.

Although many Americans support the idea of increasing the federal minimum wage, there are some businesses that oppose it for various reasons. One business owner in Seattle said that the wage raise "would force them to cut back on new recruits and service hours" (BBC). In my opinion, if a company cannot afford to pay their employees at $15 per hour, they should at least raise the wage to $10 per hour, so their employees can lead a better life.

Why do you think it is necessary or unnecessary for the U.S. to raise the national minimum wage?

The Ivy Yield is Never High Enough

After recently reading my American Studies classmate, Luke Iida's, blog post,"Our Educated (And Privileged) Government," I was prompted to think further on the subject of social capital, or social connections, and its role in the American class system. Like Luke, I want so badly to believe in the classic "American Dream" in which anyone can achieve their dreams if they work hard and have a little bit of luck. Although I do think the American Dream is true to an extent, I think social connections are also a major part of becoming "successful."

One way social capital and socioeconomic status play a role in our society is in college admissions. As Luke mentioned in his blog post, expensive East Coast private schools often end up sending outrageously high numbers of students to selective schools. In fact, this subject recently came up in a conversation with my mom. My mom told me that she just got off the phone with my uncle (her brother) and that he is outraged. She said that he cannot believe that no one from my cousin's school is going to Harvard or MIT this year. To put this into context, my cousin goes to Gilman School in Baltimore, Maryland, a $27,360 per year private preparatory school for boys (Gilman website). Like many elite private schools on the east coast, Gilman justifies its ridiculous price with its "superior quality" education, but, most importantly, its high enrollment rate at highly selective universities, or what some call "the ivy yield."

Gilman School Logo
Looks similar to Ivy League schools' doesn't it?

Personally, I was pretty shocked that my uncle would be upset that there are no seniors from Gilman going to Harvard or MIT this year, considering the fact that a number of students are going to Johns Hopkins, Princeton, and Dartmouth, as well as several other extremely selective colleges. Do not get me wrong, I know my uncle only wants the best for his children and that is why he and my aunt decided to send their children to private schools. However, I still find it a bit disturbing that many prep schools are basically selling well-off parents the opportunity to increase their child's odds of going to a selective university. I believe that anyone, regardless of the high school they attend, should have the same opportunities to go to any college they want, however, that does not seem to be the case with 1 out of every 20 freshmen at Harvard going to 1 of just 7 high schools: "Boston Latin, Phillips Academy in New Hampshire, Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, Stuyvesant High School in New York, Noble and Greenough School in Masssachusetts, Trinity School in New York, and Lexington High School in Massachusetts" (Sun-Times).

Although I do think that there is a clear connection between selective college admission rates and attendance at certain preparatory schools such as Gilman, I also think colleges are often looking for the best students for their school, not necessarily the ones who went to East Coast prep schools. In an article in the Brown Daily Herald, Jim Miller, the dean of admission at Brown, states that relationships between Brown and high schools do not affect acceptance rates. Miller simply attributes the high rate of acceptance from elite preparatory schools to the schools' "ability to attract a diverse and talented group of students with their high college admission rates." Schools like my cousin's do have a high level of academic and athletic talent, however, I still question Miller's statement. To me, when Miller says that preparatory schools have a "diverse and talented group of students," he really means "a rich and well-connected group of students."

So, what do you think, is there a connection between social capital (such as prep schools) and success (be it financial or otherwise)? If so, what examples of this can you think of?

Movies or Books?

Pretty much as long as movies and books have coexisted, people have been making movie versions of books. As a result, the obvious question comes to mind: which is better, the book or the movie? For me, it's almost always the book.

I was recently prompted to rethink my opinion regarding this question after finishing the novel, The Great Gatsby. As I often like to do when I finish a book, I watched the trailer for the movie version. Regardless of the impressive list of actors such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, after watching the short trailer and reading several negative review of the movie saying: "Just because a film looks like it was dipped in 18-karat gold doesn't mean it's rich in quality" (US Weekly) and calling the movie "A failure…" (Miami Herald), I am doubtful that the film lives up to its novel counterpart.

For example, one of my favorite books of all time, The Lightening Thief, was made into a movie in 2010, which I found to be an incredible let down mostly because I felt that the book did a much better job of "transporting me to another world." According to an article from The Guardian, "Films are great, but they just don't give you the same…inclusion that books have. You're merely an observer…" I could not agree more. The best part about a book for me is that you can become another person and live in a totally different place for a few hundred pages. I know my opinion about books is kind of cliché, but I truly believe that a movie can never be as great of an experience as a book.

So, what do you think are better? Books or movies?

Social Hierarchy in the U.S.

Although many Americans like to think that there is no longer such thing as social class boundaries in our society, I would argue that there are definitely social classes in the U.S. In The Great Gatsby, social class is of huge importance. In the book, the two classes are broken up into 2 categories: the East Egg and West Egg of Long Island, NY. Because East Egg is primarily composed of people with "old money," or inherited money, it is a considered to be "higher class" than the West Egg, which is mostly people who have earned their own money or "nouveau riche."

One notable distinction I have noticed between the social classes in The Great Gatsby is the clothes that the East Eggers wear vs. the clothes of the West Eggers. I think F. Scott Fitzgerald purposely makes a visible distinction between the people from East Egg and the people from West Egg: "They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering..." (8). "The effeminate swank of his riding clothes...he seemed to fill those glistening boots..." (7). Because the people from East Egg were wearing white dresses and "glistening boots," it is likely that they did have a job with any sort of manual labor involved. Furthermore, by calling the boots "glistening," it is also implied that they have probably been polished or they are brand new, yet again portraying the people of East Egg as upper class. If a person of working class were to wear a white dress or glistening polo clothes, they would ruin or get them dirty.

Another distinction between the East Egg and West Egg in The Great Gatsby is the people. Basically, in order to be considered part of the high society in East Egg, one must be a W.A.S.P. (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). When Mr. Wolfsheim, a Jew, is introduced he is described very anti-Semitically: "A small, flat-nosed Jew raised his large head and regarded me with two fine growths of hair which luxuriated in either nostril" (69). Because of the way Mr. Wolfsheim is portrayed by Nick Carraway, the narrator, shows that many people of the high society in the 20s were anti-Semitic and Jews were generally not part of the upper class in America.

How do you think social class has changed since the time of The Great Gatsby?