Living wage?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Living wage?

The minimum wage, as it is, certainly isn’t enough to enable anyone to talk about decent living. Just the other day, a woman in New Jersey was found dead while taking a nap in her car. She works FOUR jobs.

None of them living wage. We can definitely be certain of that – for otherwise there’d have been no need for her to work an additional three jobs at the same time. Her story runs as follows (The Star-Ledger, August 27, 2017):

Maria Fernandes worked four jobs, including shifts at two different Dunkin Donuts.

Often she drove from job to job, stopping along the road to catch a couple hours sleep, police said. She kept a container of gasoline in her 2001 Kia Sportage because occasionally she ran out of gas, authorities said.

Early Monday, the 32-year-old Newark woman pulled into a lot off Route 1 & 9 in Elizabeth for a nap. She apparently left the car running and was overcome by carbon monoxide mixed with fumes from the gas can that had overturned, police said. Fernandes was found dead in the car about eight hours later.

“This sounds like someone who tried desperately to work and make ends meet, and met with a tragic accident,” Elizabeth police Lt. Daniel Saulnier said.

Her tragic fate again demonstrates how modern-day society allows employers to treat its workers, workers who are the very people, don’t forget, who enable employers to make a profit, and often more than a decent profit at that.