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Longview family illustrates challenges of making do on minimum-wage income

A recent article in The Daily News follows a family for one-month as they try to scrape by making minimum wage. A portion of the article is reprinted below. The entire article, more photos and information about the family’s situation are available with the full article

Longview family illustrates challenges of making do on minimum-wage income

Jeremy and Kristin Hurring are barely scraping by on his minimum wage salary.

The Rainier couple doesn’t have the money to replace the brakes on their car. They can’t afford disposable diapers for their 1-year-old daughter, Sarah. They don’t eat out. They can’t afford new clothes for themselves or Sarah. And just the gas to drive to the Woodland tulip festival was a splurge.

But they do enjoy some extras: They each have smart phones, they have a pet dog, they buy some groceries from an expensive home delivery service and they spend $92 monthly on an Internet/cable TV package.

“It’s our only source of entertainment. We don’t do anything else,” says Kristin, 41, who says she’s unable to work because of constant pain from fibromyalgia, but who has been declared ineligible for state disability benefits.

It’s people like the Hurrings who make the debate about raising Washington’s and Oregon’s minimum wage so heated — and complex. Even though Washington has the state’s highest minimum wage, many families like the Hurrings can’t make ends meet without government assistance, to say nothing about trying to fulfill dreams of prosperity. But critics of the attempts to raise it say it was never meant to be a sole source of livelihood and that boosting pay for low-skill jobs would hit small businesses especially hard.

Pressure to raise the minimum wage has been intensifying nationwide. Wednesday, workers in more than 200 U.S. cities walked out on jobs or joined protests bankrolled by organized labor in latest bid to raise the minimum wage. Oregon is considering raising its minimum wage — from $9.25 an hour to $15 an hour. In Washington, a bill that would have pushed the minimum wage — now $9.47 — to $12 an hour by 2019 fizzled in the legislative session now nearing its end. Despite those bills’ failure in the Legislature, supporters are expected to launch a citizen initiative to boost Washington’s minimum wage, perhaps beyond $12. The fight is far from over, and it has particular relevance in Cowlitz County, where a quarter the of the residents qualify for food stamps.

To shine a light on the debate, The Daily News followed the Hurrings for one month to explore the challenges of living on minimum wage.

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