LETTER FROM FILMMAKERDear Colleague,
Like many of my peers, I grew up believing in the American work ethic – the belief that
hard work will invariably lead to economic success. Yet, the hard-working low-wage
earners we met while making Waging A Living felt trapped in poverty by dead-end jobs.
Some worried that their earnings were failing to keep up with their bills, while others
despaired that they were unable to provide their families with the same standard of living
that they enjoyed growing up. They all believed in the American dream but discovered
that the ladder out of poverty was steeper than they imagined.
Virtually all of the twenty-five films I’ve made for PBS have taken viewers inside the
lives of people grappling with problems associated with poverty. A few years ago, when I
produced Ending Welfare As We Know It, I discovered that most of the people that
moved from welfare to work were unable to find jobs that paid a living wage. Welfare
reform succeeded in getting millions of Americans out of the welfare system without
getting them out of poverty. The daily struggles of these working poor families became
the inspiration for Waging A Living.
The percentage of workers trapped in poverty rose 50 percent between 1979 and 2000.
Today thirty million Americans – one out of four workers – earn less than the federal
poverty level for a family of four. Even more unsettling, most economists believe that
families need to earn about twice the federal poverty level to be self-sufficient. One of the
most disturbing trends is the rapid growth in income inequality. Between 1997 and 2000,
incomes for the top 20 percent of wage earners rose 33 percent, while incomes for the
bottom 20 percent fell nine percent. It is a sad irony that a growing number of full time
workers are unable to provide the basics for a decent life in a society that supposedly
values and rewards hard work.
In Waging A Living, I wanted viewers to understand what it’s like to work hard, play by
the rules, and still not be able to support a family. All of us benefit from the hard work of
the janitors and security guards in the offices where we work, the waiters and bus boys in
restaurants where we dine, the maids and porters in the hotels where we sleep, and
cashiers and clerks in the stores where we shop, but we seldom get to know much about
the private lives of these workers whom we take for granted. I wanted to bring viewers
inside the daily grind of the nameless people we encounter every day who struggle to
survive from paycheck to paycheck. I chose a cinema verité style that enables viewers to
experience vicariously the aspirations, achievements, and frustrations of four low-wage
earners in the Northeast and California. I hope believe that the audience will come away
with a deeper appreciation and respect for the people who cook our food, bag our
groceries, and take care of our children and elderly. My goal is for viewers to take a new
look at the prevailing American assumption that hard work alone can overcome poverty.
-- Roger Weisberg, Public Policy Productions
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2006/wagingaliving/pdf/pov_wagingaliving_guide.pdf?mii=1 
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