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Answering Arguments against the Living
Wage
The following are some common misunderstandings
and arguments we've heard regarding campus living wage
campaigns. Please contact
us to suggest more questions & answers, or any
other changes to this page!
1. Workers on campus earn what they’re
worth. The market determines the value of their labor,
and disrupting that balance will result in job loss
and unemployment. We’re talking about a system
of scarcity and limited resources. You were in my macro
class, weren’t you? A minimum wage job is better
than no job, right?
The minimum wage, or the low wage earned by campus
workers, is not determined by market forces. The lowest
income bracket has been getting steadily poorer and
the real value of the minimum wage has steadily declined
since 1968 (see note 1). All this has been
occurring despite increasing productivity in US workplaces.
Low wage workers live in extreme poverty, and cannot
afford decent housing, nutritional intake, health care
or basic necessities for them or their families. This
is not a question of abstract market theory; this is
about real people who work two and three jobs just to
scrape by. Working families should not live in poverty.
The situation for low wage workers is still getting
worse. Facts courtesy of the Economic Policy Insitute
(see note 2):
Wages for the lowest-paid 10% of workers fell 9.3%
between 1979 and 1999. The number of jobs in which wages
were below what a worker would need to support a family
of four above the poverty line also grew between 1979
and 1999. In 1999, 26.8% of the workforce earned poverty-level
wages, an increase from 23.7% in 1979.
Non-unionized Workers have little to no bargaining
power in their workplace. Unionized workers have more,
but still less when pitted against the market or against
a corporation. In order to remedy this power discrepancy,
municipalities, firms and universities must set a decent
wage floor, thus insuring that employees earn enough
to cover basic needs at the very minimum.
This is an issue of prioritization of university funds;
were service workers important to university administrations,
the funds would be made available for them to earn enough
to afford a life out of poverty.
The myth of higher wages leading to higher unemployment
has been thoroughly debunked by several economists.
See the important study by David Card and Alan Krueger
on Pennsylvania and New Jersey fast food restaurants
proving that a minimum wage increase had no effect on
employment rates (see note 3).
Notes:
1. see Economic Policy Institute data at http://www.epinet.org/issueguides/minwage/figure1.gif
2. from http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/issueguides_livingwage_livingwagefaq
3. see http://www.irs.princeton.edu/krueger/90051397.pdf
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2. People need to start from the bottom and
work their way up. That’s the American way. If
they’re stuck in a low-wage job, it’s their
own fault, because if they were driven enough they’d
go school, learn English and work their way to a better
job. Giving them handouts just makes them lazy. Other
immigrant groups have come here and made it. I mean,
my European ancestors were immigrants, too, and look
where we are today!
The poverty of low-wage workers is inexcusable. Because
it is impossible to survive on the average wage of a
service worker, workers are forced to take two or three
jobs. For workers who work upwards of 80 hours a week,
most anything outside of their jobs, sleeping and eating
is impossible. They work very, very hard and many have
dependents on their wages here and in home countries.
Were workers able to maintain a decent standard of living
on the wages of one job (in other words, if they were
to make a living wage) not only could time be made for
family members, but, were they inclined, workers would
have time for technical, linguistic or academic coursework,
have time to participate in political campaigns or union
activities, or devote time to either improving their
workplace or looking for a different job.
A living wage is not a handout. By earning a living
wage workers, in fact, are no longer dependent on government
poverty programs. A living wage guarantees decent pay
for decent work which is, if anything, part of the “American
dream” to work free from exploitation. In order
to enable workers to empower themselves, they need to
be organized into a bargaining unit. Unions provide
workers an avenue to express and remedy grievances with
their employers.
To assume that anyone can “make it” if
they work hard enough ignores structural oppressions
faced by most low-wage workers. Workers face any combination
of discrimination based on their race, gender, sexuality,
age, class, a disability or linguistic barrier. Individual
exceptions of financial success despite the institutions
that discriminate against them do not erase systematic
discrimination and oppression. Similarly, to equate
the Euro-American experience to that of recent immigrants
of color ignores the systematic privileging of whites
in this country over people of color.
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3. The living wage discriminates against the
real poor. By setting aside the amount of money a living
wage would cost we’re using up funds that could
be used to help those even more impoverished. Instead
of dumping cash on workers who are clearly surviving,
we are morally obligated to send the money to starving
kids in Africa or to homeless shelters and food pantries
in the city. These are the people who really need our
charity.
A living wage is not charity! It is the obligation
of our communities and universities to pay workers a
decent wage. The fact that service workers live in poverty
is unjust; full-time jobs should afford workers their
basic needs. Declining wages is an endemic problem in
the U.S., and it is employers’ place as well as
the government’s to stop the downward trend that
results in more families living in poverty every year.
Poverty wages are exploitative because workers
have little to no say in their rate of pay. They are
forced to work several low-paying jobs just to survive.
Among other risks, families in poverty have little to
no access to health care, thus resulting in minor health
problems becoming serious, debilitating and even fatal
without treatment.
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4. My mother works for minimum wage. Are you
saying it’s not good enough? That we live in poverty?
(or) When my grandparents came to this country
they had nothing. They worked in factories for pennies
an hour, and now look where my family is. Nobody handed
them any $13 an hour. These people just need to work
harder to get ahead.
It’s unfortunate that anyone is forced to work
for minimum wage. Poverty wages are a national problem,
and we need to work together to raise the wage floor.
If we were in your hometown, we’d work in solidarity
with low-wage workers there to implement a living wage.
Do you think minimum wage workers earn what they deserve?
Should full-time workers be forced to live below the
already artificially low federal poverty line?
-- see also: response to question 2 --
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5. Paying a living wage will put the workers
you’re trying to help out of a job. Here you are
running around naively and idealistically ranting about
higher wages, when you don’t realize how much
harm you’ll actually cause. Because we’ll
be paying higher wages, the jobs will attract a higher
quality worker (read: better educated,
higher economic class, different race).
The workers who have the jobs now will be displaced
and out of a job. We need these low-wage jobs to guarantee
low-skilled workers something.
Though displacement is often used as an argument against
living wage implementation, there is no documentation
of its occurring as a result of living wage policies
or ordinances. It is pure and groundless speculation.
The issue is that compensation for these jobs is unacceptable.
Entry-level jobs should not mean poverty wages!
More importantly, universities do not operate as a
totally open, free-market system. So, even if the displacement
argument wasn't false in society in general, it would
still be absolutely irrelevant to a university setting.
In our living wage policies we can guarantee job security
so that current campus workers don't lose their jobs
during implementation. In our policies we can also set
up a system to monitor hiring trends and ensure that
the company doesn't implement hiring practices that
are racist or classist.
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6. Paying a living wage is going to cost a
fortune. You’re not telling the whole truth about
the extent of the financial impact of this. Not only
will we need to raise workers’ wages, but we’ll
have to raise their managers’ and supervisors’
accordingly in order to maintain the income ratios and
avoid wage compression. We can’t afford all that.
Wage compression can be a possible factor of the overall
cost of a living wage policy if employers choose to
maintain similar wage ratios. This cost can be easily
calculated with the proper data and can be taken into
account. This does not, however, relieve employers
of their obligation to pay a living wage to their employees.
Wages they pay employees who earn more than a living
wage is their prerogative. Firms affected by living
wage policies and ordinances have repeatedly found ways
to absorb the costs of higher hourly wages (see
note below), and they sometimes must in order to
cease paying poverty wages.
Wage ratios have been included in municipal living
wage policies in order to ensure that the highest salary
is not excessively greater than the lowest. This is
an example of redistributing profit more equitably among
all wage and salary earners.
Note: For example, see "Taking
the Higher Road"
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7. Workers choose to work here. If they weren’t making enough
money, they could just quit and get a better job. There
are points when someone is willing to work for even
below minimum wage, or for free. We pay the present
hourly wage because the market bears it. I mean, there
are hundreds of people who would take their job if it
isn’t good enough for them.
To say workers “choose” to work low-wage
jobs exaggerates and misrepresents their actual choices.
Many workers hold two or three jobs because they do
not have access to higher paying entry-level jobs, or
because those jobs do not exist. A choice between poverty,
abject poverty, and not surviving is not a choice. To
call it a choice is to mystify an exploitative market
and blame the worker herself rather than isolate the
root of the problem: poverty wages.
Workers who earn what they deserve and what they need
to afford basic living costs can take pride in their
work and living standard. They can live without welfare
or other government poverty programs. They can support
a family. This most basic security must become the baseline
of our society.
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8. If the cost of living in this city is so
expensive, why don’t they move somewhere else?
They could live outside the city and commute. Even our
professors can’t live in the city; most have to
live further away and drive into work. How can the university
be expected to pay our janitors enough to live in the
city not even professors can afford?
Many low wage workers already commute hours to work
every day. A living wage would enable workers to choose
to live a reasonable distance from their place of work.
Everyone should have access to affordable housing (1/3
of their income) in the city of their employment.
Professors can in fact afford to live in the cities
of their universities, but often not to their desired
standard. They choose to commute in order to be able
to afford a bigger house, more space, etc. Low wage
workers do not have the luxury of this choice, and instead
are often forced to live in substandard housing hours
from their workplaces.
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9. If we pay a living wage our tuition is going
to skyrocket. Students are going into debt for their
education and you’re expecting them to pay even
more? This campaign is insensitive and classist.
Funding for a living wage policy does not need to
come from tuition. Universities prioritize funding,
and unless they prioritize funding for a living wage
for all staff, their budget is exploitative and unjust.
University administrations have the power in determining
salaries and wage scales, where workers have none, and
therefore their needs are ignored and forgotten. The
president’s salary, new buildings or projects,
for example, come before staff in nearly every case.
Universities must reallocate funds. How much, for example,
does the president make? How much did the university
spend on the last building project? Universities raise
money for projects they deem more important than staff,
such as new buildings or programs, and could just the
same raise money for.
While students and workers cannot necessarily provide
the minute budgetary details to how this may be accomplished,
as universities employ experts in their finance and
budget departments well equipped for this, we can demand
it do what is right and cease exploiting its unjust
power over staff by paying poverty wages.
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10. The fact that this wage is based
on a family of four [for example] is
totally arbitrary. Some of the people I see around here
look 19 years old. Why don’t we just pay people
varying wages according to how big their families are?
A family of four is an average. In reality low wage
earners have more complicated networks of family and
dependents. Most recent immigrant low wage workers send
remittances to family’s abroad, and many workers
support partners, other relatives, more than two children
or elderly parents. Some live alone without dependents.
Some are single mothers or fathers, or are teenagers
contributing to their family’s income. Thus, the
guideline of a family of four is a meeting point for
the varying networks of dependents on the income of
a low wage worker.
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11. This city (or a nearby city) already
has a living wage ordinance, and it’s a lot lower
than what you’re campaigning for. School should
pay the prevailing living wage. I have a lot more faith
in the wage determined by the city than by a bunch of
sign-waving radical kids who haven’t taken an
economics class in their lives.
Municipal living wage ordinances are often the result
of political bargaining rather than cost-of-living calculations.
Ordinances are also often based on the desperately out-dated
federal poverty line (see "What's
wrong with how the government calculates poverty?"
for more info on the federal poverty line). A university
should pay what it actually costs its staff to afford
a decent living standard.
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12. Instead of paying a living wage we should
offer classes and programs to help folks get ahead.
We could have money-management courses to teach people
how to find bargains, save on taxes, and eat for as
little as possible. We could have English as a Second
Language classes and give them free access to the library.
Other schools offer technology skills classes.
Universities can and should offer these resources
to their staff. Class and library access, however, do
not make up for poverty wages. A living wage is an employment
baseline. Non-wage benefits are crucial to a just workplace,
and several must be implemented along with a living
wage. See "Living
Wage 101: Non-wage Benefits", or visit American
Rights at Work for more info.
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Please contact
us to suggest more questions & answers, or any
other changes to this page! |
