MINIMUM WAGE – A LIVING WAGE?
The Economic Justice Action Team
The Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry of California
“No labor is menial unless you’re
not getting adequate wages.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The minimum wage is about people living their lives…
Meet John Jones III and his son,
Kai – John is a licensed aircraft
mechanic working as a security
guard at Burger King for $10/hr.,
$12.25 next March, to support
his wife and 2 children.
Meet Avelina
Although Avelina is a
college graduate with an
array of skills, she has
never earned more than
minimum wage. With
those earnings, she has no
hope of ever paying off
her $70,000 student loan.
WAGES MEASURE HOW WE HONOR HUMAN DIGNITY AND
THE DIGNITY OF WORK
Living wages:
• meet Avelina’s and John’s family’s basic needs,
• provide them and John’s family with financial security,
• enable Avelina and John and his wife and children to
develop their potential and realize their dreams.
How does the new minimum wage of $12.25 in Oakland
measure up?
What would it take for Avelina
to afford an apartment in Oakland?
Avg. monthly rents in Oakland are $1,578, the seventh
highest in the nation. For Avelina to find an apt. she can
afford, she would have to earn more than $30.00/hr., or
work for 100 hours a week at the increased minimum
wage.*
*National Low Income Housing Coalition
California’s Skyrocketing Housing Costs
Average fair market rent for an apartment in California:
$1,354.00 per month.
A minimum wage earner must work 115 hours per week
every week of the year to afford rental housing at this
price.*
*National Low Income Housing Corporation
What would be a living wage for John and his family?
John’s and Avelina’s Current Wage — $20,800, or $10.00 per hour
Federal Poverty Line – $23,850,or $11.46 per hour
Federal Supplementary Poverty Measure – $25,144, or $12.08
Avelina and John’s Increased Wage, March, 2015 – $25,480, or
$12.25 per hour
California Poverty Measure – $29,500 – $37,400, or $14.18 – $17.98
per hour.
Self-Sufficiency Standard – Alameda County – $72,830, or $35.00
per hour*
*Economic Policy Institute figure is $73,245.
Are Avelina and John worth higher wages?
How do their wages compare with the value
their labor contributes to their employers?
Worker Productivity in California
In 2000 each California worker produced just over
$79,000 in good and services annually. That’s $38.00 per
hour, more than 3 times what Avelina and John will make
when their wages go up next March.
Worker productivity since 2000 has increased
significantly, but what has happened to wages?
Wages falling behind
From 2006-2013 wages for 80% of workers fell significantly --5-6.5%.
The result: the wage gap between highest and lowest paid
workers is at its highest level ever, with high wage earners
making more than 3 times what John, Avelina, and other low
paid workers make.
This gap is a major contributor to severe and growing
inequality…
WAGES AND INEQUALITY
Inequality is not new, but has grown steadily for
more than 3 decades:
Top 20% of earners – gained 17.9% since 1979
Everybody else – lost 12.2% in same period.
That’s a 30% gap.
What “recovery”? It’s getting worse —
In the first 3 years of the “recovery,” 95% of all income gains
nationally went to the top 1% income earners. Both John and
Avelina worked more, but got no raise.
In California, 2009-2011:
top 1% captured 155% of total growth;
Avelina, John and the rest of the bottom 99% saw their
incomes drop by 1.4%.
THE BOTTOM LINE –
Even their increased wages fall far short of
enabling providing for their basic needs and
financial security. John’s situation maybe even
more painful, because he cannot support his
family in the way he knows they deserve.
How do John and his family get by?
To take a shower in his apartment, John has to use pliers
to turn on the water because the knobs are broken. He
can’t complain to his landlord because he’s behind on the
rent. When his family runs out of toilet paper, John cuts
paper towels into quarters to save a few bucks. He covers
the windows in his bedroom with blankets because he
can’t afford curtains.
Trying to make ends meet…
He covers the windows in his bedroom with blankets
because he can’t afford curtains. To cut down on the
water bill, he and his wife only wash their dishes every
three or four days. And in the past several months, he
often skipped meals so that his pregnant wife had
enough to eat.
For Avelina it’s a little less complicated, but no more
hopeful: she has to cut something if she’s going to make
any payment on her debt, so she will never have what
the economists call “disposable income.” And she will
never be able to dig out of the hole she’s in because she
tried to get ahead by getting a college education.
MINIMUM WAGE = POVERTY WAGES
Currently at $9.00 per hour California full time
minimum wage earners with a family live below the
federal poverty line.
Our tax dollars help support them –
We subsidize employers who pay minimum wage
to the tune of more than $240 billion a year
nationally to help support the working poor
employed by these companies.
WHO ARE THE BIG WINNERS IN THIS
CORPORATE WELFARE?
WALMART
McDONALDS
HOW DO MINIMUM WAGE WORKERS
LIKE JOHN GET BY?
By constantly choosing between rent, food and
medical care, between their families’ home and
their health.
As Unitarian Universalists
we care about the struggles
of Avelina and John and other
low wage workers.
OUR VALUES CALL US TO CARE
Our faith affirms the inherent worth and dignity of all
people; justice, equity and compassion in all human
relationships; and the right of all persons to participate
in a meaningful way in the communities of which they
are a part.
Every economic decision and institution must be
judged by whether it protects or undermines the
dignity of the human person and whether it fosters the
participation, development, and fulfillment of people.
DIGNITY
Low wages are not living wages. They
• contradict our values
• dishonor John and Avelina’s work and John and Avelina
themselves
• condemn Avelina and John and his family and countless
other individuals and families to lives of insecurity and deprivation
We honor the dignity of all who labor, whatever the nature of
their work, and however menial society considers that work.
Therefore, we call for a living wage for all workers, so that they
and their families can be secure and fully realize their potential.
COMMUNITY
Low wages marginalize workers by denying them the
means to meaningfully participate in the life of our
communities.
We are in community with the most vulnerable in
our society --- those who are left out or left behind
and those who are excluded or exploited.
We are called to take action to welcome
these workers and their families into our
Beloved Community.
“A MORAL IMPERATIVE”
UUA President Peter Morales and UUSC
President Rev. Dr. William Schulz have
declared that raising the minimum wage
is “a moral imperative.”
How can we lift the wages of workers
like Avelina and John?
1. Local Minimum Wage Campaigns – watch the
UUJM – CA website for news
2. Protests targeting specific companies that pay low
wages
You can start next week!
Stand With the Walmart Workers on Black Friday on
November 28
The day after Thanksgiving
at Walmart stores all
across California – see the
“Stand with the Walmart
Workers” Handout
MAKING CHANGE AT WALMART
Support OUR Walmart:
(Organization United for
Respect at Walmart)
http://makingchangeat
walmart.org/
HOW TO SUPPORT THE WALMART WORKERS
• Sign a letter supporting the
campaign
• Visit one of the actions at your
local Walmart
• Put an article in your church’s
newsletter about the experience
• Invite a Walmart worker to
speak at your church
• Lift up the struggles of Walmart
workers living in poverty during
your congregation’s Joys and
Sorrows
Stand With the Darden Workers
Darden Restaurant Group, with more than
1,900 restaurants in a number of national
chains, including Olive Garden and
Longhorn Steak House, made profits of
over $500 million last year. The CEO made
$8.5 million, more than 560 times the pay
of a full time minimum wage worker. See
the handout for ways you can get involved
in protesting the low wages and
exploitative working conditions at Darden
restaurants.
WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO?
Support state legislation to raise the minimum wage:
California SB935 (Leno): Calls for $13.00/hour by 2017
and indexed to inflation in 2018.
It passed the Senate this year, but failed in an
Assembly committee, with a couple of key Democrats
not voting. It will be reintroduced next year.
AND WHAT ELSE?
Support the proposed increase in the federal minimum wage
The Fair Minimum Wage Act (HR 1010):
• increases the minimum wage in three steps from $7.25 to
$10.10 per hour
• increases wage for tipped workers in annual 85¢ increases
from $2.13 per hour to 70% of the regular minimum wage
WHAT IMPACT WOULD RAISING
THE FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE HAVE?
• Raise the pay of at least 25 million workers nationwide,
generating $35 billion in increased pay for working American
families
• Lift nearly 60% of the nation’s 10.4 million working poor
out of extreme poverty
WHAT DO OPPONENTS OF RAISING WAGES SAY?
• It will reduce employment, especially in low
wage industries: not true. States that have
recently raised the minimum wage have
increased employment more than those that did
not.
• It will cause significant price increases: not
true
INCREASING WAGES LOWERS IMPORTANT COSTS
Research shows increasing the minimum wage:
• reduces costs by reducing employee turnover
• Improves employee morale and productivity
• Boosts local economies
• Creates jobs
A LIVING WAGE?
Even an increased minimum wage will not be a living wage,
BUT … it is a significant step for John and Avelina and many,
many underpaid workers, a step toward
• Ending poverty
• Reducing reliance on government assistance programs
to support workers
• Stimulating economic activity in our communities,
which benefits us all
• Reviving the American dream for struggling families
• Beginning to alleviate our severe inequality
• Bring us closer to shared prosperity for all those who
help create it.
A New Bottom Line
An increased minimum
wage will give John and
his family a better chance
for the richer, more
fulfilling life they deserve.
And Avelina?
An increased
minimum wage will
give her a shot at
getting out from
under the burden of
her student loan debt
which shackles her
life today.
STANDING ON THE SIDE OF LOVE
Because we stand on the side
of love, we stand with low
wage workers, honoring their
dignity and their work, and
helping to build the Beloved
Community we affirm as our
vision for life together with
all of our neighbors.