No one should ever endure the kind of economic humiliation that comes with working a full-time job and making a less-than-living wage.
There is dignity in all work, but that dignity grows dim when the checks are cashed and the coins are counted and still the bills rise higher than the wages.
That is the beginning of this powerful New York Times column by Charles M. Blow which I urge people to read.
He places the political debate about raising the minimum wage in the context of hopes and aspirations most Americans have for a better life, and then writes
But it is easy to see how people can have that hope thrashed out of them, by having to wrestle with the most wrenching of questions: how to make do when you work for less than you can live on?
This is powerful writing.
It is clear writing.
It is direct writing.
Blow places things in a larger political context, pointing out how some of the people affected by the minimum wage are the same people who must ride public transportation then wait online for hours in order to vote.  He notes:
But it is easy to see how people can have that hope thrashed out of them, by having to