EDITOR:

Living wage. I have heard that term a lot lately. I used to hear it years ago. I remember a few years ago, when Seattle instituted a $15 minimum wage. Less than a year later, a lot of the smaller Mom and Pop style shops were forced to close because they could not afford to stay open. Major corporations have reported that they will be forced to reduce their employment numbers in the coming months. Ford Motor Company just announced another 3,000 lay-offs. If you go to any fast food restaurant, you see a reduction of hours of operation, and the hours that the dining rooms are open. One of the problems is that they are unable to hire more workers. Everyone complains about the self-checks at Walmart. Nobody says anything about Meijer, who has just as many self-checks. Then you go to Elmers and they have self-checks, too. Why? Trying to find enough workers is one of the problems. Wages starting at $12 or $15 an hour for an “entry level-type” job, and nobody wants them? Okay, so the letter writer says that we don’t need more service jobs we need jobs that pay a “living wage.” What exactly is a living wage? And it’s a legitimate question. Nobody can give me an answer. $15 an hour at 40 hours a week is about $30,000 a year. How much more would be a living wage? $25 an hour? $40? I don’t know.

My question to all of those saying we need “real jobs, paying a living wage” — what kind of real jobs? Manufacturing? It’s done overseas now. Technical? Again, China. This country used to make things.

How about we embrace companies that are willing to invest money to make our lakefront eyesore into a nice place to go? We just went through another successful Fair Week. There were no rooms from Iron Mountain to Manistique. We could use more rooms. Nobody has any apartments available. We could use more condos. We have a dwindling retail district downtown. We could use another reason to go downtown and then, with more traffic, we might attract other business.

Maybe then we could get more real jobs that pay a living wage.

Tom Grant

Escanaba