- $1 billion Empire State Building IPO: why it won't be like Facebook IPO
- In surprise move, GOP leaders admit defeat in payroll tax battle
- More than 30,000 Germans turn out against anti-piracy treaty ACTA
- Does Obama blueprint reduce budget deficit fast enough? (+video)
- Pentagon budget: Does it pit active-duty forces against retirees? (+video)
- Murdoch media crisis deepens with five new arrests
- How Pinterest combines the best parts of Facebook, Tumblr, and Etsy
- US, China face 'trust deficit' as China's heir apparent visits
'Living wage' laws gain momentum across US
New study shows higher incomes from 'living wage' outweigh the cost in job losses.
(Page 2 of 2)
"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.
Page: 
1 | 2
