Is This Low Wage Just Too Low?

A great discussion is going on over at Joe Grimm's "Ask the Recruiter" column at Poynter.org...

A reader's question: "Is This Low Wage Just Too Low?"

I am a recent journalism graduate and have been looking for a job since before graduation. After having been rejected from several jobs already I'm a bit down in spirits. The upside, though, is that really none of the jobs I've been rejected for are perfectly down my aisle -- they're not distinctly print journalism, which is what I'm looking for.

Finally, I've found an opening at a local weekly paper where I could be covering the education beat as well as some local government...it's a very small operation...I'd get a lot of clips and also have the chance to do page layout and headline writing, as well as some Web site management...but it doesn't offer health insurance.

I'm expecting an offer from the paper this week, but the pay rate that the editor threw out in the interview was $9.50 an hour. I had crunched $10 to $12 an hour before I went in to see if I could make my budget work, and $10 was the absolute least I could do. That didn't account for having to pay for my own insurance, which I absolutely cannot do without.

Reader reactions and discussion, including some by yours truly, in the feedback and comments.

How The New York Times Screwed Up An Easy Trend Story

Have you read Cara Buckley's piece in The New York Times entitled, "Starting Salaries but New York Tastes"?

Exactly what was the point of that article?

If you haven't read it, a quick recap by way of an extended nut graf:

Having one’s mother mail rotating boxes of old clothing is just one of the myriad ways that young newcomers to the city of a certain income — that is, those who are neither investment bankers nor being floated by their parents — manage to live the kind of lives they want in New York. Every year around this time, tens of thousands of postcollegiate people in their 20s flood the city despite its soaring expenses. They are high on ambition, meager of budget and endlessly creative when it comes to making ends meet.

Some tactics have long been chronicled: sharing tiny apartments with strangers. Sharing those apartments with eight strangers. Eating cheap lunches and skipping dinners — not just to save money, but so that drinks pack more of a punch and fewer need be consumed.

But there are smaller measures, no less ingenious, that round out the lifestyle. These young people sneak flasks of vodka into bars, flirt their way into clubs, sublet their walk-in closets, finagle their way into open-bar parties and put off haircuts until they visit their hometowns, even if those hometowns are thousands of miles away.

In general, the article is interesting. As New York's prices get higher, and the economy crisis reaches deeper, the young professionals that move to the city post-Sex and the City absolutely have trouble making ends meet. When high expectations meet low salaries, it's cause for any interesting article in the Metro section.

But hold on, just one second: this article is indicative of truly poor news judgment.

Why?

Because it allows for a local trend story that isn't even-handed. And as all journalists know, you're supposed to interview all sides of a story.

In the article, Buckley uses characters/sources that are all living beyond their means in a decidedly unequal way: notably, putting extremely overpriced drinks, habits or digs in Manhattan's most sought-after neighborhoods above basic daily nutrition. While that's an interesting and notable trend, there's not a single mention of those unsupported young professionals who do the opposite -- live within their means to get ahead.

"But wait one second!" you say. "The Times runs a story like that all the time! This story was a breath of fresh air, a new take on a perpetual phenomenon!"

That's true. But without a mention of the other side of a trend, a story about it shouldn't run.

What's more, the story doesn't even make use of comparable subjects: all of the sources in the article live in coveted neighborhoods of the young: Chelsea, West Village, downtown Brooklyn, Williamsburg. All of them profess having problems eating well-balanced meals. But guys like Peter Naddeo, a $15-an-hour musician, just can't be compared with Allison Mooney, a publicist in the West Village, or Adam Liebsohn, a communications strategist who makes $60,000 a year and lives in the East Village but finds it impossible to pay for a broadband connection. Some find it hard to eat out on a $3.50 plate of rice and beans.

Ever hear of the supermarket?

As an editor, I look at this group and I see problems: True, all the sources are on their own financially, but where are the people making $10 an hour or less, without college education or recently graduated and no longer allowed to live on loan checks? I know several people who pay less than $600 a month (far less than some of the rents mentioned in this article) and make ends meet freelancing -- as in, no full-time job, no benefits, no health insurance.

So to an editor's eye -- one that knows New York -- I ask: with all of these reporting holes, why?

Or more appropriately: so what?

To me, running an article like this is like running a piece on homeless people who drink away their money or use it on drugs. Without the article addressing the greater problem of, say, drug laws or the psychological problems of alcohol dependency, the article is one big, "so what?"

I feel the same way about this piece. It's as if the Times didn't want to pass judgment on the ridiculous fact that many of the sources in this piece are acting irrationally (to boot, without looking at why). So in avoiding showing the other (arguably more rational) side and putting it all into perspective -- which is what a good article should do, of course -- they condoned an article to run that was neither balanced nor fair.

Though the nut graf is to the point, it promises the wrong point in the words ahead. It is misleading and written for a different article. To reference a specific example, we see that this article is supposed to be about even better ways that poor young professionals manage living in such a high-priced city:

They are high on ambition, meager of budget and endlessly creative when it comes to making ends meet. (emphasis added)

But for many of the sources in this article, there was no creativity involved in making ends meet. For many, living and "making ends meet" was simply living extravagantly and making the wrong kinds of sacrifices to zero out the budget. Who cares how creative a person on a limited budget must be to make ends meet when that person has habits so easily beyond their means financially?

Maybe it wouldn't be so hard for a communications strategist pulling in 60K a year to afford broadband internet connectivity if he didn't live in such a high-priced real-estate area.

The effect the article leaves on its readers is also problematic. For an article that made such a point to note that these young professionals were not relying on trust funds or parents for additional income, it wildly misconstrues the overall, non-supported young professional population as irrational spenders -- and without figures, data, reasonable comparison or anything to round out the trend, it's a misleading, failed piece.

And for that, I say, go back out there and keep reporting.

A Generation of Journalists Uninsured: Writing Without Health Insurance

This week, New York magazine ran a cover story on the "Young and Uninsured," or the "Young Invincibles," as the insurance industry apparently likes to call them. The story explains how young (20-30), healthy, non-salaried workers are stuck in this insuranceless, safety net-less void between graduation and a long-term job with benefits, and the phenomenon is only growing due to the migration away from '50s-style lifelong jobs.

The entire time, I couldn't help but think about journalists.

I often hear about how rough the job market is, especially in a major urban area, for young people. Many of the workers profiled in the New York article were working unrelated jobs - in restaurants, retail, etc. - to support their true passions, like art. We hear about this phenomenon all the time - but do we think about what happens when someone gets a cavity? Or gets hit by a taxi?

I've been having frequent, nervous conversations with others about the prospect of being without health insurance. And it's coming fast - so, like many others, I'm rushing to get myself "situated" before it expires. But what about after school?

I don't expect to receive a salaried job right away. Am I stuck watching preventative care fly out the window? And what if something unforseen and terrible happens? I'm certainly one of the more invincible young invincibles, but I'm still human - and I still live in a big city.

In a previous post, I mentioned the difficulty (read: impossibility) of a new graduate or new journalist in trying to make ends meet on only journalism internships (entry-entry-level, basically). I didn't even mention health care. What if you're out of school and older than 24?

You're screwed, that's what.

And I think that's just one more side-effect of a system in journalism that keeps its most entry-level workers at benefitless hourly wages (and no, worker's compensation is not what I'm talking about. I don't forsee any major damages incurred from typing and complaining too much about what I'm typing about.). This is what I'd like to call the Pursuit of (Journalistic) Happyness syndrome - new job, new industry, no benefits.

So I'd like to open up the forum and ask you, readers and journalists: Have you spent a time in your life uninsured, particularly as a journalist or related profession? Did something happen? Were you able to cope, financially? When did you finally get benefits?

And what about you Gawker editors? Alex Balk, Emily Gould, Alex Pareene, Brian Lam, Gina Trapani, Ben Popken? Does Denton give you the goods?

Or are you all members of the Freelancers Union?

Readers, allow this post to be your own profile and post your own stories. Anonymity is OK. I'm especially interested in those twentysomethings that are out there now in the big cities. How do you manage?