MY NEW HERO
Keith Fons
Keith Fons steps off a bus onto Portland’s Southeast Foster Road one afternoon carrying a bag of groceries and three cellophane balloons, one for each child. The purple Tinkerbell balloon is for Summer, the birthday girl. Fons walks the half-block to the Lents duplex he shares with his fiancée, Vickie Stockhoff, and their three children: 2-year-old Junior, 3-year-old Marie and Summer, who just turned 6. The family is outside when he arrives at the two-story off-white house, the front stoop separated from the sidewalk by a chain-link fence. Fons slides onto the stoop’s small bench and smiles as the kids play next to him, then heads inside to crash on the couch. He won’t rest long. Fons has just finished a 21-hour workday, split between two downtown Subway restaurants. He’s due back for another graveyard shift in about eight hours, and he’ll need at least 45 minutes for the ride in on a bus or MAX train. He doesn’t have a car. Week in and week out, Fons works 60 to 80 hours at Subway. He’ll take any shift, any day, as many hours as he can get. That’s what it takes, at $11.50 an hour, to pay the rent, buy groceries and send Summer to first grade with pencils, notebooks and a pink backpack.
Raising a family is tough. In fact, it’s tough enough that I decided I wanted no part of it. I have tremendous respect for men and women who make the commitment to raising a family and freely making the sacrifices necessary to guide children to adulthood.
Being a parent is challenging enough under the best of circumstances. Doing it when one parent is unable to work due to illness and the other takes on the burden of trying to make ends meet on $11.50/hour is herculean. Reading Fons’s story is simultaneously awe-inspiring and horribly depressing. No one with a shred of humanity could do anything but admire Fons’ commitment to his family and the lengths he’s willing to go to ensure that they have what they need. Working 60-80 or more a week at $11.50, while admirable, is something no one should have to do.
In Fons’ case, he understands the choices he made earlier in life continue to color his prospects today, something that may well continue for some time to come. We’re all a product of the choices we make, though some start off in better places than others. Still, full credit to Fons’ for refusing the victimhood so many would eagerly claim. I look at his grace, dignity, and selfless commitment to doing the right things for his family, and I wonder: Could I do the same thing in the same circumstances? Would I be able to hold up under the sort of tremendous responsibility Fons continues to shoulder without complaint? Perhaps, but I’m not so certain. What I am is grateful that I don’t have to do what Fons does day in and day out.
When you spend your life in survival mode, how do you plan for the future? When your focus is on getting through each day, keeping the lights on and food on the table, how do you live your life and look forward to the things many families take for granted? How do you take vacations, buy clothes, and so provide so many other things that require money of the sort someone making $11.50/hour just can’t produce? How do you plan for retirement when you simply don’t have the luxury- or the energy- to look that far ahead?
I’d challenge anyone to read Fons’ story and then make the case that a $15/hour minimum wage is unreasonable and unsustainable. Even though Fons is clearly willing to push himself to whatever lengths he needs to in order to provide for his family, no one should have to go to such superhuman lengths. No one should have to work such ridiculously insane hours- 21, 22, 23-hours days- for $11.50/hour.
There’s simply no credible argument to be made that Oregon’s $9.25/hour minimum wage- second highest in the name behind Washington State’s $9.47/hour- is a living wage. This is especially true when you consider the historically low rental vacancy rates that are driving rents up and pricing families out of the market. It’s not uncommon to hear and/or read stories about people leaving Portland because they simply can no longer afford to live here. Yet Fons continues to do what he must in order to ensure his family is provided for. When you’re looking to define “heroism,” you don’t have to look much farther than Keith Fons. I suspect few of us would be willing or able to sustain the pace he maintains daily as a matter of course.
Since I first read Fons’ story a couple weeks ago, he’s since lost one of his two full-time jobs. Since both jobs were for the same Subway franchise owner but at different locations, there were concerns among the owner’s lawyers that they might have run afoul of labor laws concerning calculation of overtime. Fons is now down to one job- something most of us would consider more than enough- and looking for another full-time gig. Despite the setback, he’s not complaining, and I suspect the publicity he’s received will greatly help him in his quest to support his family.
No one should have to go to the lengths Fons does without complaint. When we begin debating the creating of a livable minimum wage, we should remember that it’s not all about business owners. It’s also about the people who work for them. Remember the actual definition of “minimum wage” is that business owners would pay even less if they could. We should be able to require that workers should make enough to support themselves- pay their bills, feed their families- without having to take on the sort of burden Fons has assumed.
A $15 minimum wage isn’t an abstract concept. It is- and should be- about people. THAT’S what the argument should be about. $15 may just be a number, but it’s a start.
