30 Days

In a new show on FX, Morgan Spurlock ("Supersize Me") explores alternate life choices 30 days at a time. The premier episode has Morgan and his fiance, Alex, living on minimum wage in Columbus. Since that is where I live, I had to watch it to see what I recognized and how Columbus came off.

The choice of Columbus was a little strange. Spurlock says that he chose it because Ohio's economy is doing badly and because of the close presidential race. Columbus is doing much better than other parts of the state and the election was over months before Spurlock came here. From the beginning we wonder about his choices.

Before the show aired I wondered how difficult it would be to find a job that only paid minimum wage. As it turned out, it was impossible. According to a newspaper article, Alex's job paid more but the producers made her take a pay cut for the show. Spurlock said that his jobs were paying $7-$7.50 an hour. They never said if he got to keep the extra.

This is an important point. One of Spurlock's main theme's is that Congress should raise minimum wage. Since neither of them found a job that paid minimum, raising it would not have helped them a bit. Unless the producers made both of them accept pay cuts for the sake of the premise. If that's the case then their poor financial state was the producer's fault, not Congress's.

In many ways the show was like a segment of PBS's "House" series (1900 House, Colonial House, etc.). Call it "Minimum Wage House." The circumstances were very artificial. For example, they never tried to get better paying jobs. Temp jobs in Columbus pay $10 and up an hour. They could not get these jobs because of the show's premise. In trying to act like poor people, they were not allowed to act like real poor and try to get a better job.

Very little coverage was given to the other people working beside them. One man said that his first job, 30 years ago, was making cars for $7.30 an hour and now he was making $7. He did not say what happened in between. I'm guessing substance abuse.

When Spurlock gets his job it is at a sleazy temp agency. The work agreement includes things like not sleeping on the job and not hiding in the restroom. Spurlock laughs at this but I have seen people doing just these things. That's why they make $7 an hour.

The other person mentioned has four kids at the age of 22.

Alex complains that her job is the same as her first job when she was a teenager. Exactly. These low-paying jobs are taken by people who are either very new to the labor market or have problems holding a real job.

Spurlock also worked in some commentary on medical coverage. He hurt his wrist laying sod and Alex got a uninary tract infection. They tried a free clinic but the waiting line was too long and they were turned away for the day. Instead they went to the Emergency Room and were charged a fortune.

Spurlock makes a pitch for some sort of changes but I don't think he knows enough about the subject to go beyond wishing for free medical coverage for everyone.

His experiences show the effects of two different approaches to medicine. The free clinic had too many patients. Were we to offer free medical coverage to everyone then every place would likely have too many patients. That is what happened in Canada where the waiting lines for most procedures are weeks to months long.

Then there is using an emergency room for a non-emergency. Spurlock just needed an Ace bandage and a day off. He could have figured that for himself but Alex talked him into having it checked "just in case". If his experiment had lasted longer than 30 days he would have made better choices the next time. He probably would have have taken a day off work to go to the free clinic.

Spurlock and Alex constantly complained that being poor sucked. There was nothing to do. At one point Spurlock used a library computer to search for free things to do in Columbus and found a dumb site that suggested such things as touring an animal shelter. Had he looked a little further he would have found this site which has some real suggestions. Also, if he had been here a couple of months later he would have found free festivals going on most weekends. As it is, there are free concerts fairly often.

Plus, he was in a library. Columbus has one of the nation's top-rated libraries. The libraries alone often have performers. Most of these are kid-oriented, but they exist. Or he could read a book. You would think that a playwright would read occasionally.

But this interferes with his whole "life sucks if you are poor" theme. Spurlock obviously would like us to be more like the Europeans where unemployment is so common and so comfortable that it is now considered a lifestyle choice. Here is an account of an immigrant to Sweden whose family never had to work.

Spurlock mentions a few times that we are the wealthiest nation in the world. If we were to treat the poor like France does then that would no longer be true. The unemployment rate in France has been above 10% for decades and their economic growth is miserable. Someone compared the economies of Europe with the individual states. Spurlock's native West Virginia is one of the few states that is doing worse than the French.

Supersize Me showed someone forcing himself to make bad nutrician choices - only eating at McDonald's, supersizing whenever asked, and eating everything - and then using the results to indite the fast food industry. This installment of 30 Days does the same things. It may suck to be poor in the US but raising the minimum wage will not help when entry-level jobs are already paying 50% more than minimum.