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 AvelinaAlthough 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 Avelinato 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 CostsAverage 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 otherlow 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.

COMMUNITYLow 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 workerslike 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.