Opinion: Workers need money — and the many other gifts work can bring

Elizabeth New Hovde discusses the value of work, its benefits for workers and employers, and its impact on personal growth.

Elizabeth New (Hovde) explains that work takes up a large portion of most of our lives and it’s an exchange between an employer and an employee that benefits both parties

Elizabeth New (Hovde)
Washington Policy Center

Outside of household chores and babysitting, I was sometimes a counter girl at Elliotts’ Custom Cleaners as a young teen. It was my first “real” job. I’m not sure if I got paid or not. It was my dad‘s place.

I do remember I liked it. Not necessarily tagging clothes, marking stains or fetching hangers for customers. I liked being useful. I liked productivity.

It was only a few years later that I was 15 and living independently in Seattle. The family dry cleaners had gone bankrupt, and my parents moved to an island in the South Pacific to dry clean in paradise. No joke. That was the job advertisement my dad answered.

In high school, I had the opportunity to be a housekeeper, a barista and a hostess at a Mexican restaurant. I was an aerobics instructor, taught swim lessons and lifeguarded. I was grateful for work. People exchanged my labor with money I needed for rent, groceries and swimsuits.

I went to college, mostly to keep my bed in one place for longer than three months. It worked. My work hours and paychecks grew beyond minimum wage, as my responsibilities at work also grew. I was a file clerk in the King County Courthouse, loaded United Parcel Service trucks and did more lifeguarding.

In all these jobs, I grew confidence. I learned to be dependable and adaptable. I was grateful to earn money that kept me in school — and my bed in one place — when loans were not enough.

I’ve been a writer and policy analyst since leaving college in the ‘90s. I love what I do and have been able to gain skills with each place I’ve been employed. I’m thankful for paychecks and all the other benefits I receive from work.

As I read about strike after strike and high minimum wages that give teenagers like mine a lot of money for outings and bad food choices — and that make the wages of people with more experience or schooling look insufficient — I am grateful for employers who supply people with work, who protect workers’ rights and who give résumé-building experiences that workers can take with them elsewhere.

Work takes up a large portion of most of our lives. It’s an exchange between an employer and an employee that benefits both parties. And I’m trying to teach my kids the values I learned in a dry cleaners.

Elizabeth New (Hovde) is a policy analyst and the director of the Centers for Health Care and Worker Rights at the Washington Policy Center. She is a Clark County resident.