Life and poverty behind the Disneyland smiles

Denkmal von Gründer Walt Disney und "Micky Maus" (im Hintergrund: "Cinderellas Schloß"), "Disneyland Resort", Anaheim bei Los Angeles, Kalifornien,

"The Happiest Place on Earth" — is how they refer to themselves and their other sites.
Happy! Fun! The American Dream!

But a recent article in the New York Times by researcher and reporter Jennifer Medina found this is not always the case.
And the famous site is none other than Disneyland (California).

A survey of thousands of employees at Disneyland Resort found that more than 10 per cent have been homeless in the last two years but though they are definitely struggling to make ends meet, they don't want to leave "The Happiest Place on Earth".

Emily B spends hours on her feet embroidering names on to mouse ears at the Mad Hatter shop where she has been an employee for the last two years, giving the visitors the sunny Disney smile that she was trained to give but for months, after work, she went back to her truck where she slept after showering at the park before her shift.
And this is not unique to Disneyland.

Orange County in California is known for its affluence and its tourist industry. West coast Americans and international visitors from South America and the Pacific make Disneyland part of their California "pilgrimage" but thousands of workers who keep its resorts, restaurants and hotels running are sometimes struggling to stay afloat.

California housing costs are soaring and workers earning the minimum wage find it difficult to pay for basic costs. They have moved inland from the high costs of the shore towns and spend hours driving to and from work with many opting to move from couch-to-couch or sleep in their cars for months at a time.

Disneyland Resort, which includes the theme park California Adventure and nearby hotels, employs roughly 30,000 people and is the largest employer in the region. But despite their frustration with their income, Jennifer found that many said they choose to stay at Disneyland, attached because of their childhood memories or reluctance to lose the perk of sometimes getting free tickets for their own children.

Unfortunately for many workers who earn less than $15 an hour, there are very few options to make more money elsewhere due to the various hours they have to work and the skills that they may lack to get better paying jobs. About 85 per cent of the 17,000 Disneyland employees who are part of a union make less than $15 an hour, according to union rolls. The current minimum wage in California is $10.50 and will reach $15 by 2022. The cost of living in Orange County would require a single adult to earn about $33,000 a year to meet a basic monthly budget but roughly 38 per cent of the county's 1.5 million workers earn less than that. It is an issue that low-wage earners across both California and the US are battling with and the latest Trump budget has made matters worse for these low-income workers. California now has the highest rate of poverty in the US.

The survey and analysis of the workers was conducted by the Economic Roundtable, a group that has long supported raising the minimum wage and was paid for by a coalition of labour unions who represent many of the low-wage earners at the park.

Unsurprisingly, a spokesperson for Disney said that the survey was "inaccurate and unscientific" and produced by "politically motivated labour unions".

Mickey and Minnie, Goofy and Pluto, Snow White and the seven dwarfs have long been the drawcards at Disneyland and every young child looks forward to meeting these characters at the resort — but there is an unfortunate truth behind the façade that is only now coming to light. Behind those smiling character faces there are many non-smiling persons.