Lawrence O’Donnell issued a call to action to you all: we would like you to tell your story of what it is like working on the minimum wage. Why?
Last week, as fast food workers went on strike in roughly 150 cities across the country asking for their wages to be increased to $15 an hour, conservative commentator Erick Erickson had this to say about minimum wage workers.
“More than 95% of Americans make more than the minimum wage, you should know that. The minimum wage is mostly people who failed at life & high school kids, seriously. Look, I don’t mean to be ugly with you people. What? So my producer from my show is in here, and he’s just staring at me. (He) can’t believe I said this. If you’re making – if you’re a thirty-something-year-old person and you’re making minimum wage, you’ve probably failed at life. It’s not that life has dealt you a bad hand. Life does not deal you cards. It’s that you failed at life.”
Tell us your story. Here’s how:
1. In a minute or less, capture a video that rewrites Erick Erickson’s opinion of minimum wage workers.
2. Post your video on YouTube, and email your YouTube link or .mov file to thelastword@msnbc.com.
3. You can also tweet us your story with the video link, and please use the #NotAFailure hashtag.
4. Be creative! You can use other platforms such as Vine or Instagram. But don’t forget the hashtag!
We’ll air the best videos on air and on our website as well!
MS NOW staff