On the bright side, that $2,000 maximum allowable earnings should go a lot further now:
Virginia junior football player Joseph Williams was at the school’s library late Sunday night when he noticed another student fast asleep at one of the tables. A friend mentioned to him that the student was participating in a hunger strike organized by the university’s chapter of the Living Wage Campaign, a group with which Williams previously had been involved.
Williams sent a text message to another friend of his who he figured also was participating in the hunger strike and told her he had eaten his last meal. He too was going to join the hunger strike, which is designed to leverage university decision-makers into improving the pay of the school’s service-sector employees.
As National Review Institute contributor, Scott Lincicome, commented to me: “The kid’s life is an inspiring story, but he’s clearly not an econ major.”
Williams is not on a football scholarship; he said he receives full financial aid from the university because of his family’s economic situation. But he said he is concerned “to a certain extent” about how his participation in the hunger strike will affect his standing on the football team.
“But at the same time, that’s something I’m willing to sacrifice,” Williams said. “I’m very passionate about what I believe in, so obviously if I’m willing to give up food, there’s not a lot that’s going to be able to sway me as far as other people’s opinions of what I’m doing.”
As Williams described in a blog post he wrote Thursday for MichaelMoore.com, he and his family moved “over 30 times – including various stays in homeless shelters, the homes of family friends, and church basements” as he was growing up. He was raised by a single mother and has three siblings.
More Lincicome: “I wonder if Michael Moore paid him a living wage for that blogpost?”