Being hard-working and poor are not mutually exclusive.
By Darrell Ehrlick
Editor-in-Chief
Daily Montanan
Few things are as obvious as some politicians’ hostility toward the working poor.
Ironically, this was on full display recently while lawmakers were debating giving themselves pay increases at taxpayer expense, crying crocodile tears about working so darn hard for so little money. You’d think that would create a certain sense of compassion for those who work hard for modest wages.
But not so, with all the legislators in Helena.
Take, for example, the comments from Rep. Sherry Essmann, R-Billings, who said, “We bring a ton of expertise and experience to this body. I don’t know anyone who would take a responsible job in the private industry … for $33,000 a year.”
Let’s take a look at Montana wages, courtesy of the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics which provides occupational employment and wage statistics for the Treasure State.
I have good news and bad news for Essmann: As long as she doesn’t need to eat, buy things, or need any type of personal care, she’s on point. But food preparation averages $14.52 per hour, or about $30,000 per year, and except for the responsibility of feeding people and not making them sick or killing them, that’s a job that seems otherwise “responsibility” free in private industry.
Personal care attendants average $15.12 per hour (or about $31,000 per year), childcare workers average $13.99, and truck drivers and haulers clock in at $13.19 (a little over $27,000) — and I am sure there’s nothing responsible about looking after toddlers or hauling tons of concrete.
Besides, what responsibility comes with being a cashier and handling all that money for $14.12 per hour ($29,400 or so)?
Rep. John Fitzpatrick, R-Anaconda, apparently isn’t satisfied with using fast-food workers as the legislative punching bag when it comes to examples of marginal pay, and wants to target a new group.
“The guys that are distributing pot in our communities are making three dollars and 92 cents more than the folks that are sitting in this building,” Fitzpatrick said. “I’m kind of of the theory that folks that are sitting here and bring a wide variety of talent and expertise to craft public policy for the state of Montana deserve a better salary than those who put dope in plastic bags and hand it across the counter.”
What a clever way to impugn an entire — ahem, legal — industry. By using language reminiscent of the war on drugs, Fitzpatrick seems only too happy to embrace new legislative scapegoats with unmistakable contempt by using inflammatory language like “dope” and “distributing pot.”
Using that same logic, we should start characterizing bartenders as bootleggers, and characterize bars as veritable houses of moral decay in Montana communities, something I would think a lawmaker from the community of Anaconda wouldn’t undertake lightly.
But as he’s characterizing those who work at legalized marijuana dispensaries, which are often friendly, clean and seem customer-service oriented, the state continues to rake in substantially more money from “dope” than it does coal, $57.7 million from annual marijuana revenue versus $43.3 from coal, but no one at the Capitol is using miners as a punchline.
And then there’s Sen. Tom McGillvray, R-Billings, who perpetuates the tired stereotype that those who receive the benefits of Medicaid expansion are just too damned lazy to get a job, but not so unmotivated that they’ll take a government handout.
“When I was younger, the novel idea for health insurance was: Get a job,” said Senate Majority Leader Tom McGillvray, in a meeting with reporters on Tuesday.
And yet, the data that his own colleagues have recently presented repeatedly shows that those on Medicaid expansion who are not working make up less than 7% of those enrolled, and 65% are either working full-time, part-time or in school.
Clearly, McGillvray is perpetuating a debunked stereotype that those who need any sort of help are lazy, and that it’s a personal flaw to be poor.
McGillvray, who loves to talk about his prayers and religion, not so unlike the Pharisees of the New Testament, sarcastically invokes getting a job as a “novel” means of health insurance.
I dunno: I seem to recall something about Jesus speaking often of the poor, and it doesn’t seem to me his message centered on getting a job.
Instead, it seems like that same Jesus that McGillvray is so fond of would have been eligible for Medicaid expansion, seeing how he was an unemployed carpenter. And boy, would I love to see the work requirements McGillvray and his friends could cook up for Jesus’ other friends, unemployed accountants and fishermen.
Let’s be clear: Being hard-working and poor are not mutually exclusive, and being poor is not some kind of defect.
But picking on poor people?
That may be.
Originally published by the Daily Montanan, 01.30.2025, under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
