30 Days

       The best way to learn about a person is to walk a mile in their shoes. Morgan Spurlock does just that in his show “30 Days”. (This show is available to watch on Netflix.) In every episode he lives in a given situation for 30 days. The documentary is exemplary of life for those living in poverty because of the low minimum wage. Though this was released in 2005, I feel that it still holds true across America today.

Morgan Spurlock and his fiancee Alex choose to live off of minimum wage for 30 days. They turn over all of their savings and credit cards, and start out with only what they would earn after one week in a minimum wage job. They chose to conduct their experiment in Columbus, Ohio because it is representative of the economic situation in America at the time. In 2005 the minimum wage was $5.15 an hour, and it had not been raised since 1997 but America, job openings, and the cost of living had certainly changed.After taxes they each got to start out with $178.47. At the time minimum wage had not been raised in 8 years,

Morgan and Alex narrate the documentary, but there are two other minimum wage workers that tell Morgan about their hardships while living off of minimum wage. The first is an older man who worked for GM 25 years before the making of this episode, and making less than GM paid all those years ago. The other worker is a young man in his early 20’s, raising 4 kids and supporting his wife as well. This man leads Morgan to think about the cost of children and child care while working for minimum wage. Morgan then decides to have his niece and nephew come to stay with them for a few days to see what it’s like. These kids have never lived in this kind of monetary situation before. All of these characters paint a picture of poverty and how it is received in America. The two minimum wage workers represent the variety of people working minimum wage, young and old. The two children represent a) Americans who don’t understand poverty and b)the children who should not have to suffer or see their parents fight over money when they are working full time.

The most important element of “30 Days: Minimum Wage” is the experience Morgan and Alex lived through and the hardship they encountered while trying to live off of an income that the federal government deems appropriate for supporting a lifestyle. 

One of the very first bad experiences being finding affordable housing worth living in. There’s cheap housing, then there is good housing, rarely do the two intersect. Even looking in the cheap housing, they find that the rent is still very expensive for minimum wage workers. Before the end of their first day they are deeply in debt. Later on in the episode, bills start to pile up, medical bills loom over them, and they are barely able to scrape together enough cash to pay their rent and electric deposit. All of these things speak to the fidelity of the documentary. Anyone who has ever lived off of minimum wage without any assistance would feel that this documentary holds true. They keep a running tally of their income and expenses throughout the whole episode, so you get a coherent story line. Every decision leads to income or cost, so the viewer doesn’t feel as though they are hiding anything. 

Morgan Spurlock’s documentary on minimum wage is a successful attempt to capture the lifestyle of minimum wage workers living in and on the verge of poverty in America. It is important for people from all walks of life to understand the hardships of others, and perhaps through a series like this, we can all become more compassionate towards one another. Like Morgan, I leave you with a challenge: if you have never lived in a situation like this before, do it for just one month. Limit yourself to just the income of a minimum wage worker, and try to live of of it for 30 days. It will change you.