Could You Live on $51 a Week?

City Council President Todd Gloria tried it

Could you live on $51 a week?

That’s the question San Diego City Council President Todd Gloria is asking as a way to gain support of the minimum wage increase.

San Diego’s Earned Sick Leave-Minimum Wage Ordinance is set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2015. It will raise the minimum wage from $9 an hour to $9.75 on Jan. 1, $10.50 in 2016 and $11.50 in 2017.

However, that doesn’t mean the minimum wage hike is a done deal. Opponents are trying to collect 34,000 signatures to get the issue on the ballot instead.

Gloria and two local business leaders tried living on the minimum wage for one week to illustrate why they believe it needs to be raised.

“This is just an experiment for me, but for thousands of San Diegans, roughly 38 percent of us, this is their life every single day,” Gloria said.

They calculated that after taxes and housing expenses, minimum wage workers would have $51 each week for food, transportation and everything else.

“Being poor in San Diego requires you to work very, very hard,” Gloria said.

Gloria said he couldn’t buy coffee, eat out, dry clean his clothes or wash his car. Gloria used groceries as an example: He typically spends more than $100 a week at the supermarket, but only spent $22.97 during the minimum wage challenge.

Arnulfo Manriquez, President and CEO of the nonprofit MAAC, said the money was gone by the third day.

“Everything I did was framed around how much money I had,” said Manriquez, a single father of three children.

Tensions continue to run high between both sides in the debate over the minimum wage increase. As opponents gathered signatures to put the issue on the ballot, there are reports of harassment from both sides. NBC 7’s Rory Devine reports.

But Ann Kinner, owner of Seabreeze Books and Charts in Point Loma, said she’s struggling now.

“I’m already about as lean as I can get, so that means in order to keep what I have now comes out of my pocket,” Kinner said. I don’t spend as much on groceries. We don’t go out to dinner. We don’t do things people would like us to do because I don’t have the money to contribute to my own household.”

Kinner is a member of the Small Business Coalition and has a petition about the minimum wage hike inside her shop. She said raising the minimum wage will eliminate jobs.

“They’re not going to be able to get jobs because the people won’t be able to afford to hire them,” she said.

A petition drive to collect signatures and put San Diego’s minimum wage increase on the ballot will likely start up as soon as Wednesday, but opponents are asking residents to refuse to sign it. NBC 7’s Artie Ojeda reports.

The 450 employees at MAAC make at least $11 an hour and have full benefits, Manriquez said. He said better pay and benefits will lead to fewer sick days and less employee turnover.

“You will have much more productive employees,” he said.

Alma Rodriguez, Director of Queen Bee’s Art and Cultural Center, also took the minimum wage challenge. She said the hardest part was not being able to buy her daughter a book she needed for school.

“I had to do dramatic changes that we take for granted every day,” Rodriguez said. “But these people that work for the minimum wage, they actually do it every day.”

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