Growing up I was always taught that if I put my mind to it, work hard and don’t let myself get distracted I would have a good and happy life. My parents were a living example of that mentality as was the majority of my family. The ones I heard of that were not as well off would be written off as having failed in some way, that they did not put their mind to it, they did not work hard or let themselves get distracted. It seemed very intuitive and almost common sense to think this way. That was until I joined the workforce and got a first-hand experience.

Working a near minimum wage job myself for over two years I quickly discovered that all the hard work I had put into my education and the hard work I was putting into my job was only enough because I relied on the stability of my family. While working that job I was very immediately made aware of the circumstances of others who were earning the same but were not as lucky. In reality an unseen majority of those “unlucky” exist that the systems we have in place ignores. People earning just above the minimum wage are not capable of building a meaningful future as they once used to. Today it barely affords one the ability to exist. Even when I managed to break away and acquire myself a job that paid twice the minimum wage, I was still incapable of getting a loan sizable enough to afford a house, live on rent and pay utilities only by co-renting and neglecting my physical and mental health.

There is no other way around it: if you are working a job that pays around the minimum wage, your hope of building a future is dependent on the charity of friends, family and under-funded NGOs or from opportunities made possible by nepotism, cronyism or simple luck. Relying on charity means that we get inspiring stories of drop-out garage success and then let the statistical majority get left behind by the wayside.

All people should be able to live a free life- Kassandra Mallia

While we have many schemes and benefits to protect low-income earners, there is also the need to deal with the ever-tiring bureaucracy of our government as well as the stigma and shame of using these benefits. Not to mention that any attempt made at elevating oneself can risk immediately being disconnected from all these benefits at once and make it all the more likely of falling back. The disconnect here is that people shame low-income jobs and claim that people working these jobs deserve the pay they receive but forget that someone has to work those low-income jobs.

The argument for a living wage is a simple one. All people should be able to live a free life, and a state-wide mandated living wage that can afford you the means to live can free you to choose what you want to do in life regardless of the job you have. What makes a cashier or a call-agent less deserving than a software developer or a lawyer of a free life? As it stands, we need people to work those jobs, and those people should be able to pursue a life outside their work.

The solution of how to pay for it should come from the expectations we place on the private companies that abuse of our low minimum wage. We should expect those who rule over us for the largest portion of the day to pay us enough so we can enjoy what is left to us after and not be forced to run to another job to make up for these companies’ greed.

Kassandra Mallia, vice-president and candidate, Volt Malta