It is a basic American value: Hard work should earn you a paycheck that pays enough to survive. In this land of opportunity, an honest living should provide enough to make a living.
However, as we find in our upcoming Job Gap Study — which calculates the living wage in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington — that ideal is, all too often, a myth.
People find it shocking to learn that most jobs don’t pay a living wage. As we see in today’s edition of the Idaho Statesman (“Idaho’s low wages and agricultural roots play a role in workers holding multiple jobs“), for many with low-wage jobs, true self-sufficiency is quite simply unattainable.
But society benefits when people earn living wages:
- The cost of community services go down.
- Consumer spending increases, creating an economic ripple effect, or multiplier.
- People in the community have more respect for themselves, and the confidence of the community increases.
- Crime, drug use, and homelessness decrease.
- Businesses have happier employees, less turnover, and better efficiency.
The Alliance’s upcoming Job Gap Study will provide data on living wages for various household types in those five states, and compares the numbers of jobs available that pay livings wages to the number of people looking for work. The report will be published in November.