Washington, D.C.: Large numbers of ghosts from the spirit world have come together to demand a non-living wage to help them not have a decent quality of life. Ghosts from all over the country have been riding buses across the nation, finally ending up here in Washington DC yesterday for a culminating march. They are asking the President to lower federal wage standards for ghosts.
John McAllister, lead organizer of the Ghost Freedom Ride, explained the reasoning behind their demands. “Currently, the wage level set for ghosts is $13.00/hour, adjusting for inflation each year. It is what the living call a ‘living wage’. This wage level allows one enjoy a decent quality of life but guess what? We are ghosts. We are not alive.”
The ghosts are asking for the President to bring the ghost wage down to the federal wage, an unlivable $5.15/hour, so that they will not be able to live off of the money they earn and continue to live like the non-living specters they are. “It is my right as a deceased citizen of this country to not have to live in livable conditions,” exclaimed Maria Vasquez, “And applying the federal minimum wage to all ghosts would do just that! We want justice!”
Approximately 30% of ghosts earn a ‘living wage’, while the remaining 70% earn well below the living wage approximation, enjoying a general better quality of non-life than the bottom 30th percentile. Most of the ghosts protesting the living wage provide unskilled ghost labor such as house haunting, late night spooking, and other menial spirit-world tasks.
“I work two jobs a day, seven days week- a day job possessing little blonde children and a night job haunting the local abandoned mansion,” said Hattie Smith, “The least I deserve is to earn enough to not be able to live.”
Opposition to the Non-Living Wage movement, though, has been strong. Widowers, orphaned children, and grief stricken parents who have lost loved ones are pushing strongly for the living wage for ghosts to remain. “We miss our loved ones,” cried Jessie Tran, “and a living wage is the only way they can be a part of the living world!”
At this argument, most ghosts scoff or try to stifle their laughter. “Go back to the living world? Are you kidding?,” laughed Yusuf Hassam, “in the living America, there is war, chaos, and hate everywhere. In the non-living America, we all just sit back and chill the fuck out.”
In fact, it is that same apparent “ghost chillness” that local living business use to justify why ghosts should earn a non-living wage. “These ghosts are just so lazy!,” cried Kelly Franton, a small business owner in Los Angeles. “Since they are already dead, they make the worst capitalists-- they don’t care about productivity growth, increasing profits each quarter, and defeating the competition,” said Franton, ” In my opinion, they deserve the most non-living wage there is.”
