Opinion
Doing the Math: What is a Living Wage?
L
ast week, workers at fast
food restaurants demon-
strated outside their places
of work, highlighting the low
wages they receive and demand-
ing more. They say twice as much,
or $15 an hour, will provide them
with a living wage. In Washing-
ton, D.C., the City Council has
sent legislation to Mayor Vincent
Gray requiring “big box” stores
such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy to
pay $12.50, which is more than
the D.C. minimum wage of $8.25
an hour. In response, Wal-Mart
says it may not build all of the six
stores it had slated for D.C.
Responses depend on whom you
talk to, with some of the unem-
ployed saying that an $8.25 job is
better than no job, and others say-
ing that $8.25 is not a living wage.
Let’s do the math.
Someone who earns $8.25 an
hour (which is a dollar more an
hour than the federal minimum
wage) earns $17,160 per year if
they work full time (40 hours) all
year (52 weeks). Although taxes
for the low income are low, they
are still deducted, especially the
Social Security tax (about 7 per-
cent).
Too many minimum
workers don’t work full-time, full-
year. Many have their hours cut so
that companies can avoid paying
benefits. This means full time,
B ENNETT
C OLLEGE
Julianne
Malveaux
full year work is the best-case sce-
nario. For many, it can be much
worse.
The poverty line for one adult
and two children is $19,530,
which puts the $8.25 worker
below the poverty line. The parent
who earns this scant wage strug-
gles to make ends meet, and often
cannot. Too often, this parent has
to choose between transportation
and shoes for their children,
between children’s books and
food. A two-parent family has a
higher poverty threshold of
$23,550, about 20 percent more
than the minimum wage worker
earns.
Federal and state supplements
often make the difference between
swimming and sinking. Many
families who live below the pover-
ty line use supplemental nutrition
programs (formerly called food
stamps) to enhance their food
budget. Congress is in the process
of cutting SNAP so low that 5 mil-
lion of the roughly 47 million peo-
ple on the program will be cut.
Some receive medical assistance
through Medicaid. Some cities
subsidize summer programs or
other efforts, offering day care
possibilities for those who strug-
gle to afford it. According to the
Economic Policy Institute, the
average cost of childcare in the
District of Columbia is $1,300 a
month, or $13,600 a year. Poverty
Some feel these low wages are
acceptable, especially some Tea
Party members of Congress, yet
they earn at least $174,000 per
year. Actually, if fast food work-
ers were as productive as this
Congress (which has produced lit-
tle of nothing so far this year),
they wouldn’t earn a penny. Yet
those who are well paid and well
supported show little empathy for
those whose lives and work are
Congress is in the process of cutting
SNAP so low that 5 million of the
roughly 47 million people on the
program will be cut
line $23,550, childcare costs
$13,600 per year. Go figure.
In other parts of the country,
full-time, full year workers earn
less than D.C. workers. Those
who earn the federal minimum
wage of $7.25 an hour earn
$15,160 per year, less than the
poverty line for one parent and
one child. Those who earn $12.50
per hour, the proposed wage for
D.C. big box stores, will earn
$26,000 a year. The $15 an hour
that some fast food workers sug-
gest would push their wages to
$31,200 a year.
daily struggles.
The issue of unemployment
must be taken into account when
we look at the matter of poverty
lines and minimum wages. With
an overall unemployment rate of
7.4 percent and a Black unem-
ployment rate of 12,6 percent as of
July, too many households with
two adults have only one earner in
the household. Another concern is
that the federal poverty line is
published as a national rate, yet
it’s much cheaper to live, for
example, in rural Mississippi than
it does in New York City. In many
instances, the poverty line does
not reflect differences in housing
costs, health care costs, or even
transportation costs.
The Economic Policy Institute
(epi.org) has developed budgets
for “adequate” living in certain
cities. (Full disclosure – I sit on
the organization’s board). This
tool shows the wide variety of
realistic and adequate living costs,
which range from more than
$90,000 in New York City, to
around $40,000 in parts of Missis-
sippi. These are adequate living
standards, not extravagant ones,
taking into account rent, trans-
portation, and other costs.
Many quibble over the mini-
mum wage, but the more relevant
issue is the living wage. Millions
are pushed below the poverty line
because too many employers do
not take the cost of living into con-
sideration when the set wage
levels. Paying workers less than
they are worth drains our economy
because these workers will not be
spenders
or
“economic
expanders.”
Julianne Malveaux is a Wash-
ington, D.C.-based economist and
writer. She is President Emerita of
Bennett College for Women in
Greensboro, N.C.
Oversimplifying Complicated Reality of Black Poverty
C
able news anchors Don
Lemon of CNN and Bill
O’Reilly of FOX News are
strange bedfellows indeed. Lemon
is a liberal, gay, Black man and
O’Reilly is a conservative, light-
ning rod out of step with most
Black folks. In spite of this, they
agree on some points about the ills
of our community. Lemon’s recent
commentary (July 27, 2013) on
CNN raises salient questions
about who has a right to speak to
us about the issues we face.
Lemon has taken a lot of criticism
because of his comments; some
deservingly and some not. In my
assessment, I find Lemon’s state-
ments to be gutsy, populist and
simplistic.
Let’s review Lemon’s Five
Points and closing statement:
1. Pull up your pants
2. Stop using the “N-word”
3. Stop littering in your commu-
nity
4. Finish school
5. Stop having babies before you
are married or prepared to care for
them
He closed with these words:
“Pay close attention to the hip-
hop and rap culture that many of
you embrace. A culture that glori-
fies everything I just mentioned,
thug and reprehensible behavior, a
culture that is making a lot of peo-
ple rich, just not you. And it’s not
going to.”
I will not argue with anything he
said that I listed. There is no virtue
in deflection and we should not
preserve or defend some of the
cultural mores and icons (rappers)
that demean marriage, education
and full participation in legitimate
employment that increases social
mobility. The problem lies in his
oversimplifications. Any practi-
C OMMUNITY I SSUES
Hakim Hazim
tioner worth his salt will tell you
the most troubling aspects of our
community are: institutional
racism of all types, intergenera-
tional poverty, and the decaying
family structure. Criminality,
misogyny, addiction, abuse,
dropout rates, out of wedlock
births, and increased suicide rates
spring from this soil. Serious
problems call for a more serious
‘Serious problems
call for a more
serious dialogue’
dialogue.
Two immediate things we
should embrace are volunteering
to mentor and the emergence of
Problem solving courts. Both
have demonstrated the positive
outcomes scientific, holistic
approaches can produce in the
lives of offenders – especially in
terms of sobriety and rehabilita-
tion. Nowadays people are
embracing political rhetoric that
either demonizes or idealizes the
poor. Sentiment codified in ideol-
ogy is not an effective tool for
governing. The poor need a better
community structure that pro-
motes their well-being and proper
support from the government.
The two should not be polar oppo-
sites; they should be married in the
temple of strategy.
Sadly many of us believe that
the government is either the
enemy or our savior. Some think
it’s both. This contradictory,
ambivalent tendency fuels rage
and dependency during times of
racial unrest.
The historical vestiges of institu-
tional racism wreaked havoc on us
and our primal, collective memo-
ries rise with images of the trauma
we have endured from the past.
Crisis calls for leadership and we
need mature, logical and altruistic
statesmen in our community. I
want village elders that will help
shape our troubled youth and
adults in terms of what I call the 4
Cs: Character + Competence +
Critical Thinking = Credibility. As
we all master this equation, we
enhance our value to the larger
society and emerge as a voice of
progress for all people, not just our
own. In times like these, it is
important to steady our gaze and
look to the God that has brought
us this far.
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August 7, 2013 The Portland Skanner Page 5