The Low Wage Life

When you wake up in the morning, you have an odd feeling. Awoken to the setting of unhappiness. You find yourself disappointed and distraught with what you wake up to every day. It is not a feeling of mistakes but a feeling of emptiness. No mater how hard you have tried it is truly something you had little control over because you were born into the situation. You work in one of the flashiest areas in the country, Las Vegas, Nevada. You work at one of the flashiest hotels in the country and are surrounded by mass amounts of money. Although Las Vegas houses some of the most expensive suites and hotel rooms, it still provides less than substantial wages for maids and some housekeeping service. Although you work on the Vegas strip, you live in the outside community close enough to a bus stop, which is your form of transportation day in and day out. You and many of your coworkers resort to bus and taxi to get to work but compared to your coworkers they only have to worry about themselves. You have two children to send to school without a husband supporting you. As a single mother, you’re left with splitting your pay, essentially, into 3 people. Your son, your daughter, and yourself must split up $8.75 an hour. Life is tough, you are not poor but you are in no way rich. The scenarios you are placed in as a housekeeper or maid are difficult and jobs that no one would ever want to do. Living as a single mother means that if anything happens to you, the entire family’s finances and health would be in harm. You want to give the best to you children but the best you do give them is minor compared to the other children living in Las Vegas.

The part that hurts the most is the idea that you cannot afford to stay one night or have dinner at the place that you work. Your children think of your workplace as a palace and throughout the entire struggle they still are glad for all that you do. Even if you want better for them, the most you can provide is subpar. In a flashy society, it makes living a low wage life that much worse. A job as a maid is one of the least respected in Las Vegas because of people expecting to make a mess for another person to clean up with the expense of a $2 tip. Emotionally or mentally it is obviously damaging because it really places you in a certain spot in society. You find yourself placed in somewhat a low part of society with people in high society not paying any respect at all. It essentially says, “You do nothing but clean for these people yet you cannot afford to be here at all.” Janitors, maids, maintenance workers, etc all find themselves living the low wage life. The life where you work for needs opposed to wants. The life where your income does not cover your needs.