High Road Service Center

To see the best collection of living wage press clips anywhere on the internet, visit ACORN's Living Wage Resource Center. Here's just one example:

'Living Wage' Laws Gain Momentum Across US
New study shows higher incomes from 'living wage' outweigh the cost in job losses.

INGLEWOOD, CALIF. – 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.

Jun. 25, 2003:
San Francisco Begins Push for Minimum Wage
With just two weeks to qualify, San Francisco ACORN® is coordinating a field campaign of nearly 20 workers who have begun collecting signatures (10,000 needed) to place a citywide minimum wage initiative on the ballot this November. The labor-community coalition, being coordinated by ACORN®, will call for an $8.50 minimum wage for every worker within the city. For more information contact John Eller at caacornsf@acorn.org or 415-225-7438.

Jun. 24, 2003:
SEIU Local 880 Wins Right to Contract
In 1983 Chicago ACORN® began organizing low-income home health care workers into the union now known as the Service Employees International Union Local 880. ACORN® and 880 work together on numerous campaigns. Local 880 now has 20,000 members in a unit made up of personal assistants to the elderly and disabled who are paid with state vouchers. On May 31 these workers won the right to negotiate a contract with the state when the Illinois House passed HB 2221 by a vote of 115 to 0. On the same day, they won a $1 per hour increase from $7 to $8 per hour when the Illinois Senate passed HB 1179 by a vote of 53 to 6. Both votes came with Local 880 members packing the chambers. The Governor has 90 days to sign the bills or veto them and 880 has organized a postcard and phone bank campaign to urge him to sign. For more information contact Keith Kelleher at seiu880@acorn.org or 312-939-7490.

Jun. 6, 2003:
Illinois Increases Minimum Wage
Nearly a half million workers learned they would get a raise last week when the Illinois legislature voted to increase the state minimum wage from $5.15 to $5.50 on Jan. 1, 2004, and to $6.50 on Jan. 1, 2005. In January, the Coalition to Reward Work began promoting a minimum wage bill. The Coalition was put together by Illinois ACORN®, working with SEIU Local 880 and the Illinois AFL-CIO. Following months of demonstrations, calls, faxes, rallies, negotiations, and lobby visits, on May 28, with three days left in the legislative session, the votes were lined up in the House Labor Committee and on the floors of the House and Senate, and the Governor's pen was at the ready. But the Speaker of the House was refusing to call the bill up for a vote. ACORN® staged rallies at the capitol in support of the increase every day of the last five days of the legislative session.

Apr. 22, 2003:
Mass. Home Child Care Providers Win More Back Pay
Following a February meeting with over 100 home child care providers organized by ACORN® as the American Family Child Care Association, the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Office of Child Care Services committed to investigating every intermediary agency for any abuses or failures to pay workers in full. In response to pressure from ACORN®, she had already ordered one intermediary agency to award back pay of $114,000. The state has now identified two more systems that have been illegally underpaying and is forcing them to pay back pay. ACORN®'s actions and meetings with the state have also partially undone a cut in voucher rates that had been put in place last September. The effective date of the cut was moved to January 2003, and providers are to receive back pay for the previous four months. Additionally, the lower rates now only apply to new children entering care. Children who have been enrolled in programs will continue to generate income at the old, higher rates. For more information contact Lisa Clauson at maacorn@acorn.org or 617-436-7100.

Apr. 8, 2003:
Illinois Builds Momentum for Minimum Wage
On March 30, over 100 ACORN® members joined 300 allies and the Governor for a rally in support of a minimum wage increase, which is expected to pass the Senate today. The increase will be in two stages, moving from $5.15 to $6.00 on Labor Day 2003, and to $6.50 on Labor Day 2004. ACORN® mounted a huge campaign over the past weeks to sway nine recalcitrant senators, knocking on doors and asking people to call their senators on the spot. Five senators were brought around to ACORN®'s position. For more information contact Madeline Talbott at ilacorn@acorn.org or 312-939-7488.

The materials in this package come in large part from the past hard work of ACORN's Living Wage Resource Center. The Service Center would like to thank this group for mapping out the high road on the living wage issue.