Saturday, May 31, 2014

The Poor are Bilked Again and Again


 

I went to buy my bus pass at the city supermarket that sells the monthly passes.  It’s not the usual glossy shiny supermarket I shop at but a higher priced less attractive one that offers this service.  As I was waiting on long line of workers cashing their checks, I saw the list of charges that anyone who doesn’t have a bank account has to endure.  First of all, to cash your paycheck you pay from 1 to 2$.  They won’t cash tax refund checks-maybe that sum they charge doesn’t make it worthwhile.

Next, come the charges for paying bills.  Electric, gas, and other services charge about 2$ or so.  Paying your Verizon cell phone bill costs $3.  If you don’t have a checking account (which if you’re earning minimum wage is too hard to keep up a balance so you don’t have to pay a monthly fee), you are charged at every turn for every action.  And this isn’t even the worse- your neighborhood corner store will charge a lot more to cash a check. 

So once again, the working poor are hit the hardest.  Meanwhile, we are subsidizing all the corporate CEO’s who refuse to pay a living wage.  Those workers have to be helped with benefits and food stamps because the CEO’s are earning millions and pay far less a percentage of taxes than I do.

And to top it off, 2 of my students had their bicycles stolen at work.  For them the bikes are their means of transport.  This loss is compounded with so many losses beginning with the most serious one- the loss of a homeland. 

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