Morgan Spurlock, he of Supersize Me fame, has a new show called "30 Days" premiering tomorrow night on the FX Network.
The premise is to put an average American into a different lifestyle for 30 days, or something like that.
The first episode is about the minimum wage. Spurlock and his fiancee moved to Columbus, Ohio and got minimum wage jobs for a month. Turns out it's not so easy. Go figure.
Think Progress helpfully runs the numbers on the minimum wage in America.
- 4.3 million: Number of Americans who have fallen into poverty since President Bush took office
- $5.15: Federal minimum wage
- 26%: How much the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage has eroded since 1979
- 0: Number of times minimum wage has increased since 1997
- 7: Number of times Congress has increased its own pay since 1997
- $0: How much more a year people earning minimum wage earn today compared to 1997
- $28,500: How much more a year members of Congress make today compared to 1997
- $10,700: Amount a person making minimum wage will earn in a year
- $5,000: Amount below the poverty level working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year at minimum wage will leave a family of three
- 7,300,000: Number of workers who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage
- 72%: Percentage of adult workers who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage
- 1,800,000: Number of parents with kids under the age of 18 who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage
- 11 million: Number of jobs added to the economy in the four years after the last minimum wage hike
- $8.70: Amount minimum wage would have to be today to have the same purchasing power it had in 1968
- 2.5 years: Amount of health care for two children which could be bought by raising the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25
- 86%: Percentage of Americans who support raising the federal minimum wage
