To the Editor:

It is time to wake up and take a big whiff of reality. The shape of our economy has shifted over the years and not for the better. I hear people say things like “If low-wage workers want to make more money they should get a real job.” But the reality of our current job market makes this impossible. Corporations have restructured and outsourced so many of our “real jobs” that many college graduates simply can’t get hired anywhere but in low-wage fastfood or retail jobs. 

I ask you why is this the case? In an age when corporations are consistently posting billion dollar profits, why do they refuse to pay their employees a living wage? Is it greed? Is it cultural bias? I can’t answer these questions, but what I can say is that more money finding its way out of offshore corporate accounts and back into our economy can’t be a bad thing.

While some companies have taken that bold step of becoming trendsetters by voluntarily raising wages, many more will reluctantly hold back until forced to change by legislation. But here we find that these money-hoarding corporations are suddenly willing to part with their hard-earned dollars to pay lobbyists who work to block those very laws from becoming reality.

However, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, I am hopeful and optimistic. I am hopeful because I know deep down in my heart that we are a good people. I know that we can, in spite of the media rhetoric, still empathize with our fellow human beings. I am optimistic because I know that many of us want to do the right thing and build a better society for everyone. 

Armed with hope and optimism, I decided to join a group of other concerned citizens in a drive-through protest in Asheville on a recent Saturday. We drove a circuit around the city passing through each McDonalds with a drive-thru and handed the employee at the window the seventeen cents the company would have to charge extra per meal to cover the raise in wages. Never mind the fact that McDonald’s could easily dip into its $6.5 billion in annual profits to pay employees better without a price hike.

With this knowledge firmly in mind, I encourage each and every one of you to also take action, be that a call to your state and federal representatives or simply spreading a message of positive change to friends and family. If each of us does even a small part we can make our country strong again.

Cory Lomax

Sylva