LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS—This November, voters in Arkansas will decide whether to raise the state’s minimum wage to $8.50 an hour, phased in over three years. Advocates are cheering the proposal, and how well it’s polling across the state. But many workers told ThinkProgress that $8.50 an hour isn’t nearly enough.
That’s what Quinn Dodds Jr. earns now selling home theater systems at Best Buy, and he says it’s a struggle to support himself and his wife, who is studying nursing at Baptist College.
“How does it look that I can’t even qualify for our own store’s credit card?” he asked ThinkProgress. “They won’t even pay us enough to get our own credit card!”
If the couple wasn’t living rent-free with Dodds’ father, he said, they would not be able to make ends meet. And anything but the bare necessities is out of the question.
“We want to eat healthier, eat right. We’d love to shop at
Whole Foods. But we can’t do that making $8.50 an hour,” he said. “And looking for a home? It’s not going to cut it. We have our wedding anniversary coming up, November 2nd. I’d like to be able to afford to do something nice, but I’m not sure I can.” He added that he also dreams of going back to school to study graphic design or photography, but feels he can’t afford the tuition.
Dodds recently moved from his hometown in Pine Bluff, about an hour outside of Little Rock, so his wife could be closer to campus. Back there, he had worked in the frozen food section of a Walmart for just over the federal minimum wage: about $7.65 an hour. In a year, he was never given a raise. He told ThinkProgress he saw several coworkers resort to dealing drugs to supplement their incomes.
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STORY: http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/10/16/3580253/arkansas-minimum-wage-not-enough/