A Moral Obligation

This statement was made by The Reverend Bonnie Osei-Frimpong at the Raise Illinois Lobby Day in Springfield on Tuesday, January 31.

A family earning a minimum wage of $16,000 a year can not afford for the car to break down. They can not afford to take time off work if someone gets sick. They can not afford health care, child care, or elder care. A family living on a minimum wage can hardly afford nutritious food.

A family living on a minimum wage can afford to advocate for what is best for their well-being, and for their community's well-being. A family living on a minimum wage income can afford to march and move and mobilize for the sake of the American Dream. They can afford to buy-in to the common good, if they are given the chance to live, with a living wage.

There is one thing you learn very quickly when you are poor in America. Being poor is very, very expensive. When you are broke, and start cutting corners, juggling debts, when you skip your insurance payment just to get by, that is when things start to go wrong. That is when people get sick, home fires happen, bad luck hits.

When the only bill that gets paid this month is the bill that hit the ground first when you threw them all up in the air, then it is time for you to earn a wage that is enough to live on.

I was speaking to a man at my church. He told me, "It's not that I'm afraid to work. I work hard. I don't expect things to be easy. But what I don't understand is why it has to be so hard--why it feels impossible. I don't know why it is impossible."

Brothers and sisters in Christ, securing a living wage for the poor is a moral obligation. We in the state of IL have a responsibility to promote the livelihood of our fellow citizens by establishing a living wage. This is why the legislature should pass Senate Bill 1565 during this calendar year.