EDITOR’S VIEWPOINT/Sticking it
Have you ever worked for minimum wage? Most Americans have, which may explain why 130 living wage laws currently are on the books in cities and counties across America. Living wage ordinances may be multiplying because few can live on the $10,712 annual salary of a person working full time at the federal minimum wage. In fact, 1955 was the last year the buying power of minimum wage earners was lower than it is today.
The most active proponent of legislating minimum wages is the Brooklyn-based Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). Its aim is for every business that contracts with local or state government, or benefits from public funds (grants, loans, subsidies), to pay their workers a living wage.
Just how much is a living wage? ACORN says the ordinances it has backed range from about $6 an hour to $13 an hour. The group’s most recent successful campaigns were in 2005 — from Brookline, Mass., where residents approved a measure that eventually affects firms with $5,000 or more in contracts, to Philadelphia, where the city council approved a wage that is 150 percent higher than either the state or federal minimum wage.
The opponents of living wage laws cite potential problems, such as driving out businesses and driving up the costs of those that stay. Not so, says Stephanie Luce, a researcher at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts. She spoke in early April in support of a proposed living wage measure in Manchester, Conn.
Most companies do not pass the cost of higher wages to local governments, but rather charge other customers more, reduce profits or pay less money to upper level managers, according to Luce’s study on the effects of living wage laws in the United States. In addition, living wage laws did not affect businesses’ decisions to move into a community, which she says depends more on the available infrastructure and the location of customers.
Is the American public ready to support raising the wages of the lowest paid workers? More than 85 percent support raising the national minimum wage to $6.45 an hour, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll. And, only two years ago, 71 percent of Florida voters approved a measure to increase the state’s minimum wage by $1 to $6.15.
ACORN’s grassroots movement is confident in its cause. Its Web site lists more than 70 city and county living wage campaigns plus 20 more at the state level. The organization says it will try to add living wage initiatives to the 2006 ballots in several states, including Ohio, Michigan, Colorado and Nevada.
While many workers are not highly paid, very few receive the federal minimum wage. So, why then are voters so eager to hold their government’s contractors to a higher standard? To some supporters, it’s a moral issue, which resonates with voters who identify with issues about personal values. To others, it is the result of seeing their neighbors and friends lose their jobs, employee benefits or healthcare coverage. Or, it simply might come down to the illogical, yet secret, pleasure of “sticking it to the man.”
