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 'Living
Wage' Laws Gain Momentum Across US
The
Christian Science Monitor - March 15, 2002
Daniel B. Wood
Three years
ago, Juana Zatarin couldn't make ends meet. The mother of
three, a baggage handler at Los Angeles International
Airport, was subsisting on an income about half that of the
federal poverty rate of $ 17,028 for a family of four.
Today, thanks to a "living wage" law requiring city
contractors to pay employees a minimum of $ 8.97 per hour,
Ms. Zatarin earns more than $ 24,000 a year. Now life is
good. "I can make my payments on time now and even have a
chance to take some time off," she says.
It is a story that is being repeated in dozens of cities
across America as part of a trend that - surprisingly - has
continued to spread even during the economic downturn.
When Baltimore in 1994 became the first American city to
adopt a so-called living-wage ordinance, critics said it
would reduce employment and hobble local businesses and
contractors forced to pay higher wages.
But more than 60 municipalities have since passed such laws,
including the broadest, yet in New Orleans in February, and
another last week in Santa Fe. The laws mandate that
businesses under contract with the city - or in some cases
businesses that receive grants, subsidies, or tax breaks
from the city pay employees a wage large enough to lift
their families out of poverty. (In California, wages under
such agreements range from a low of $ 7.25 in Pasadena to a
high of $ 11 in Santa Cruz.)
Despite some defeats, several dozen campaigns are
percolating from coast to coast, even during the current
economic slowdown, causing even detractors to admit the
movement seems here to stay.
"Over all the early objections and fears, we are seeing a
broadening of these laws to larger cities and to all
sections of the country," says Robert Pollin, a University
of Massachusetts economist who wrote a book called, "Living
Wages," and has conducted surveys of cities that have
adopted such laws. "Based on earlier successes, the movement
is gaining confidence and momentum, strengthening the
discussion and carrying it to bigger and bigger arenas."
THE number of workers affected by such laws is still small -
perhaps 100,000. And such ordinances have been banned in
Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Missouri, Louisiana, and Oregon.
But experts say the trend is gaining momentum because
there's growing evidence to dispell the early fears that the
benefits of substantial pay increases would be overshadowed
by huge reductions in the number of jobs in the job
categories effected. And they say the demise of other social
safety nets, and lack of movement on the current federal
minimum-wage law - stalled at $ 5.15 - are helping spur
steady activity.
"Since the beginning of this movement, we kept hearing 'the
sky will fall, the sky will fall,' " says Jen Kern,
executive director of the Living Wage Resource Center for
the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
(ACORN). "Now those employers who thought they'd suffer are
saying they get higher production from these employees, less
turnover, more satisfaction ... and are able to service
their clients better."
Pro-living-wage forces got a boost from a study released
yesterday by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of
California. Done by an early skeptic of the benefit of
living-wage laws, the report examined 36 cities with such
laws - including Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver,
Detroit, New Haven, and San Jose. It found that slight job
losses caused by the law are more than compensated by the
decrease in family poverty.
"The steep wage increases [caused by living-wage laws] make
it less likely that families with a living-wage worker will
live in poverty, especially in cities where the law applies
most broadly," says David Neumark, professor of economics at
Michigan State University and author of the report. His
study comes on the heels of others with similar findings in
recent years. But despite the growth of such findings, some
observers say, it's still too early to draw conclusions.
"It's very hard to draw definitive conclusions from studies
like these because the laws only affect a tiny fraction of
the workforce - perhaps 1 percent, tops," says Jared
Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal
thinktank in Washington. But he says the findings, by a
mainstream economist who has opposed living-wage increases,
help the movement.
"The fact that a known opponent of these ordinances has come
out with a credible study showing the net benefits of the
policies is a significant boost to the movement," says
Bernstein.
ANOTHER sign of growing acceptance of such laws is the
percentage of margin of recent wins. In February, a
city-wide referendum in New Orleans raising the minimum wage
by $ 1 passed by 63 percent of the voters. The largest
living-wage law yet passed, the measure covers every
business in the city, not just public employees or employees
of public contractors. An Oakland measure passed by 78
percent of voters March 5. And two weeks ago, voters in
Montgomery County, Maryland passed a measure that was
rebuffed the year before.
"There was a lot of talk immediately after Sept. 11 that the
living wage movement was dead," says Madeleine Janis-Aparicio,
executive director of Los Angeles Alliance for a New
Economy, which supported a Santa Monica law passed last
July. A campaign by local hotels has forced a city-wide
referendum in November, but most observers feel the law will
be upheld.
"We think the continued groundswell of activity even during
this period shows that the issue is changing people's views
in small ways that will eventually force the issue on
national politicians.
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