Making Ends Meet: Inflation's Impact on Detroit Workers with Low Wages

The world revolves around money, but when your work pays lower wages and inflation weakens your buying power, life becomes more complicated.

Story and photos by Ma’Naida Gonzalez

As Michelle Gonzalez, 46, tries to adapt to the new price of living, she's hit with obstacles.

"Everything in the store has gone up; everything in the world has gone up except my wage," she says.

Gonzalez is a production worker at a Detroit auto supplier and United Auto Workers chairman representative in the Romulus, Michigan area. She's also a wife and mother of three who lives in Detroit. 

"You have to decide which bill is going to be important this week because you don’t make enough money. You have to rob Peter to pay Paul sometimes just to make it work," Gonzalez says. 

Michelle Gonzalez representing her union swag on Aug. 1 2023.

She says she has to work seven days a week and work overtime to make ends meet.

“Because you can only make a fair wage if you work overtime, you have to budget week by week, pay a bill here, pay a bill there, to just do the best you can,” she says.

The U.S. economy was strong before COVID-19 hit in 2020. The inflation rate in 2019 was just 1.81%, according to macrotrends.net. In 2022, it topped 8% after heavy stress on the supply chain. 

The inflation rate hit a 40-year high in 2022. While most economists tend to acknowledge the same causes of inflation, many disagree which elements were most responsible for the price increases.

Economists cite supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the trillion-dollar American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 as drivers of inflation, according to an NBC News article. Supply chain disruptions caused a scarcity of some goods, which pushed prices up.

“There’s a confluence of factors — it’s both,” David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution, told NBC. “There’s a lot of things that pushed up demand and a lot that’s kept supply from responding accordingly, as a result we have inflation.”  

The Federal Reserve fought inflation by raising interest rates, which created other costs for people who have to borrow money. Higher interest rates make it harder to buy a home or car, or pay down credit card debt. 

Michigan’s minimum wage of $10.10 per hour adds up to only $21,008 per year for a full-time worker, which is far below the U.S. median income of $31,133 in 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Julian Hill, owner of See You Tomorrow restaurant and Celebrity Car Wash & Detail Center in Detroit for over 20 years, was compelled to increase wages for his workers in light of surrounding businesses increasing their wages to combat inflation. 

”Since the workers are getting paid more, I had to raise my prices to pay them and to be able to get my supplies,” Hill says.

His customers weren’t thrilled with the increases.

“People don’t wanna pay more. They'll pay more for liquor, food, comfort items, but a lot of the everyday items they'll complain about,” Hill says. 

If businesses raise wages, they also must raise prices, creating a difficult squeeze for low-wage workers. 

The public supports higher wages — no ballot proposal for a higher minimum wage has been defeated since 1996, and more than 20 states have raised their minimum wage in elections since then, according to ballotpedia.org. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 per hour since July 2009.

States can set their own minimum wage; Michigan's minimum wage is scheduled to rise to $12 an hour by 2030.

An advocacy group called Fight for $15 is pushing to raise minimum wages to $15 per hour across the country. 

“We can’t wait any longer. Each day that passes without action is another day that working people are forced to choose between paying rent or buying groceries. Rich people keep getting richer, and the inequality gap just keeps growing,” Fight for $15 says on its website.

Brandon Golden sharing his skills in his element with his 6-year-old daughter Nova Golden in Detroit in July 2023. 

For Detroiters, it’s getting harder to make ends meet.

“I work a full-time job. I work my side businesses, and it's still not enough to support me and my daughter comfortably,” says Brandon Golden, 28, a production worker by day and DJ by night. 

Golden is becoming increasingly frustrated as a dad working two jobs to just make enough to provide for his family. 

“I always worked, but then I started to notice I was working with no real results. That's why I started my business (B. Golden Entertainment) to try and get more income,” he says. “I have to sometimes go without so my daughter can go with.”