This morning, as minimum wage workers in 100 cities around the country went on strike, CNN's New Day, in 90 seconds, demonstrated how to cover issues of poverty.
Watch from 1:10: (Full segment included for context.)
CNN's Alison Kosik deserves credit for reporting the facts about low-wage workers.
Her subject is a 58-year-old man with two college age children who works at Kentucky Fried Chicken, scraping by with a second job at Kennedy Airport -- not a teenager working for spending money -- which is who conservatives claim minimum wage workers are.
“Living on $7.25 -- you cannot do it,” he tells Kosik. “You couldn't even pay your apartment, buy food.”
She goes on to acknowledge the struggle that fast food workers face in their daily living, pointing out how far their median wages -- even if working full time -- fall below the poverty line for families.
Then she turns to Columbia University Professor Dorian Warren, who studies “inequality and American politics” to explain that workers are not taking these jobs by choice, but because they are “desperate.”
Kosik concludes that 6 out of 10 jobs expected to be created in the next decade in fast-growth industries pay low wages, demonstrating the magnitude of the issue.
In contrast, this is how a certain “fair and balanced” network covers workers seeking higher wages:
- Hosting a fast food lobbyist posing as head of a think tank to claim a minimum wage hike would put restaurants out of business.
- Giving a show to someone who claims what the poor lack is not opportunity or wages but “the richness of spirit.”
- Employing pundits who assert that raising the minimum wage “would be 'cursing' those workers, ridding them of the impetus to 'get better,' 'go to college,' or 'improve' their lot in life.”