Yesterday I got the chance to testify to the Washington state House Labor and Workforce Development Committee.
Our living wage research findings set a standard, that mere survival is not an adequate measure of a healthy society, and not an expectation we should be striving to set. It’s about a living wage that positions families to build for the future and realize their dreams.Continue reading “Testimony: A Living Wage Is about Family Prosperity”
The holiday season — a time of counting your blessings, spending time with your family, and abundance.
It is also a time for a huge portion of workers — unable to make basic ends meet — to be made painfully aware of how they are falling short.
About half of all full-time workers of color in the United States do not make $15 a or more an hour, a figure that actually is not a living wage for a single adult in most places.Continue reading “I Give Thanks to Workers Standing Up to Injustice”
Equity in the Balance – How a living wage would help women and people of color make ends meetNovember 2014
By Ben Henry and Allyson Fredericksen
Click here for the full report:
Click here for individual state reports:
For Immediate Release
The Alliance for a Just Society joins with millions of people who are outraged and incredulous that no indictment was made of officer Darren Wilson for killing the unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, 2014.
An indictment is not a verdict, it is simply the acknowledgement that a life was wrongly taken and that a trial is necessary to review the evidence and to determine whether the officer is guilty of murder, manslaughter, or is innocent.
No indictment means no pursuit of the truth, and little chance of justice.
“The tragedy that happened in Ferguson is a mandate to change the policy and practice of policing around the country,” said LeeAnn Hall, executive director of the Alliance for a Just Society. “Let’s end a system that allows police to take the lives of young black men, any person of color, or anyone’s child without facing the consequences.”
There have been far too many distortions, reversals and changed stories from the Ferguson Police Department about the incident. The public still doesn’t know everything that happened that day, nor do we know Darren Wilson’s version of events.
We are also disturbed by the preparation for violent conflict and confrontation by the local police in Ferguson and the State of Missouri.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a State of Emergency last week in advance of the Grand Jury decision and ahead of predicted “violent protest.” The fact is that protests in Ferguson, the surrounding area, and around the country have been largely peaceful. The governor’s decision and stockpiling of riot gear sets a dangerous tone for police.
Tension rose in Ferguson in the wake of Michael Brown’s killing in large part due to police violence and excessive response towards protesters. Journalists, local clergy, bystanders and protesters were locked up, tear-gassed, beaten, harassed and arrested over the past three months.
In this moment of miscarried justice we must all take action.
The Ferguson grand jury has announced its decision in the killing of Michael Brown.
The Alliance for a Just Society joins with millions of people who are outraged and incredulous that no indictment was made of officer Darren Wilson for killing the unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, 2014.
An indictment is not a verdict, it is simply the acknowledgement that a life was wrongly taken and that a trial is necessary to review the evidence and to determine whether the officer is guilty of murder, manslaughter, or is innocent.
No indictment means no pursuit of the truth, and little chance of justice.
“The tragedy that happened in Ferguson is a mandate to change the policy and practice of policing around the country,” said LeeAnn Hall, executive director of the Alliance for a Just Society. “Let’s end a system that allows police to take the lives of young black men, any person of color, or anyone’s child, without facing the consequences.”
There have been far too many distortions, reversals and changed stories from the Ferguson Police Department about the incident. The public still doesn’t know everything that happened that day, nor do we know Darren Wilson’s version of events.
We are also disturbed by the preparation for violent conflict and confrontation by the local police in Ferguson and the State of Missouri.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a State of Emergency last week in advance of the Grand Jury decision and ahead of predicted “violent protest.” The fact is that protests in Ferguson, the surrounding area, and around the country have been largely peaceful. The governor’s decision and stockpiling of riot gear and materials sets a dangerous tone for police.
Tension rose in Ferguson in the wake of Michael Brown’s killing in large part due to police violence and excessive response towards protesters. Journalists, local clergy, bystanders and protesters were locked up, tear-gassed, beaten, harassed and arrested over the past three months.
In this moment of miscarried justice we must all take action.
We cannot let Michael Brown’s death be in vain.
For Immediate Release
Statement from LeeAnn Hall, executive director of the Alliance for a Just Society, regarding President Obama’s announcement on executive action for immigration:
“This is a great step forward for everyone in our country,” said LeeAnn Hall, executive director of the Alliance for a Just Society. “Now Congress needs to step up to enact real bipartisan immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people in the country, and that respects the dignity of all immigrants in the United States.”
The Alliance for a Just Society released numbers this week showing that non-citizens have significantly less access to jobs that pay enough to make basic ends meet, leaving them more likely to live in poverty and unable to fully participate in their local economy.While nearly two-thirds of citizens working full-time earn $15 or more, only one-third of non-citizens earn this much. That is 63 percent of citizens compared to 38 percent of non-citizens.
“The president’s action takes us a step closer to reducing the economic racism which is at the heart of the immigration issue,” said Hall.
Just 57 percent of women and 42 percent of Latino workers earn enough working full time to cover their basic needs
SEATTLE — During this season of abundance, many full-time workers across America don’t earn enough for a single person to survive, much less to support a family. The staggeringly low percentage of women and people of color who earn a living wage is especially troubling.
“Equity in the Balance,” a report by the Alliance for a Just Society released today, details just how few women, people of color, and non-citizens in the U.S., working full-time, make a living wage — that is, earn enough income to cover basic expenses.
Only 61 percent of all full-time workers earn a wage that allows a single adult to make ends meet. Only 57 percent of women, and just 52 percent of people of color make a living wage. Just 42 percent of Latino workers earn enough to make ends meet. Among non-citizen workers, only 38 percent earn more than $15 per hour.
“A system that unjustly and persistently leaves people of color over-represented in low-wage work is economic racism,” said LeeAnn Hall, executive director of the Alliance for a Just Society. “Policies that keep women over-represented among low-wage workers is gender discrimination.
“It’s time to increase the national minimum from a $7.25 poverty wage to $15 an hour to ensure that full-time work pays enough to do more than barely survive, and so our families and economy can thrive.”
“Equity in the Balance” is a groundbreaking report, said Dorian Warren, associate professor of political science at Columbia University.
“No one in the country is talking about economic racism – and here, in this report, are the numbers that clearly illustrate its existence and its impact,” Warren said. “When people talk about poverty, race has disappeared from the conversation. The economy and race have become uncoupled in our country.”
Policies and practices in the U.S. have perpetuated low wages in jobs and industries where women and people of color primarily work.
“ ‘Equity in the Balance’ provides a stark national picture of what we’ve been seeing over the past decade in the restaurant industry, one of the largest private-sector employers in the nation. Women and people of color bear the brunt of the country’s growing income inequality gap,” said Saru Jayaraman, director of Restaurant Opportunities Centers United.
“Increasingly, the only jobs available to all people are low-wage jobs,” Jayaraman said. “The difference for women and people of color is that they are never able to move out of these jobs and into positions that will allow them to support their families.”
Women of color struggle even more, and are forced to make difficult choices to provide for their children.
“For the first time in history in the U.S., women make up half of the paid labor force. Many of them are moms who are either the sole breadwinner or the primary breadwinner for their families,” said Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director of MomsRising.
“Women’s incomes are essential to family economic security – and that economic security is critical to our nation’s overall economic health. That’s our modern reality,” said Rowe-Finkbeiner.
“Equity in the Balance” is the second report in the 2014 Job Gap Economic Prosperity Series. Alliance for a Just Society has produced Job Gap studies on jobs and wages since 1999.
Data from the Alliance’s Job Gap Study figure prominently in debates on minimum wage, paid sick days, payday lending, Medicaid and other family economic issues.
Here is a summary of the recommendations in the report:
A living wage: the ability to make ends meet, to provide for necessities as well as to have some left over for savings and miscellaneous expenses. It sounds simple, but for a large number of workers across the country, it is far out of reach. For a staggering percentage of women and people of color, it is only an impossible dream
Today, the Alliance for a Just Society releases “Equity Out of Balance,” the latest installment in the Job Gap Economic Prosperity Series. The study shows that while nationally, and in 10 states and New York City, a significant percentage of all full-time workers fall short of earning enough to make ends meet, working women, workers of color, and non-citizen workers are especially less likely to earn enough for a single adult to support herself, let alone support a family.
This staggering disparity did not come about by chance; rather, a history of discriminatory policies laid the groundwork for the disparities that still exist today. When women were denied the right to vote or to keep their own earnings if they were married; Black slaves were sold as property and freed slaves kept in a system of slave-like conditions; Native Americans forced from their homeland to barren territory; and immigrants who were not free and white were prevented from becoming citizens, a system of economic racism and gender discrimination became entrenched in the nation’s culture.
Today, the results of such policies are shown in the over-representation of women and people of color in low-wage work. Women make up 60 percent of all workers in tipped occupations, and are 70 percent of all servers in the restaurant industry. In fact, across all industries, women make up 57 percent of all workers than earn at or below the minimum wage. Similarly, restaurants are the single largest employer of people of color, and the second largest employer of immigrants.
Increasing the minimum wage and abolishing the tipped minimum wage will disproportionately help women and people of color, but more targeted solutions can help advance pay equity. Equal opportunity statues and affirmative action should address these disparities and ensure that discrimination does not keep women and people of color at the bottom of the pay scale, but such statutes must be strengthened to ensure that they are actually effective. Additionally, unionizing sectors not covered by the National Labor Relations Act (like home care workers) and fast food and retail workers will help millions of workers across the country gain access to better pay, benefits, and worker protections, and will especially help the women and people of color working those jobs.
For over two hundred years, women and people of color have been subject to policies that keep them stuck at the bottom; it’s past time for that to change.
Workers deserve to earn enough to support themselves and their families.
This concept has helped guide the work of the Alliance for a Just Society for years. And, in the recent midterm elections, voters in five states and two cities showed that this is an issue that is important to people of all backgrounds, in all parts of the country.
In this November election, voters in Arkansas, Alaska, South Dakota, and Nebraska voted to increase the minimum wage in their state, and voters in Oakland and San Francisco, California, voted to increase the wage in their cities. (Voters in Illinois and in some counties in Wisconsin also supported nonbinding initiatives to increase their minimum wage.) While Oakland and San Francisco may come as little surprise to many, the votes in the four “red” states show that increasing wages is an issue that cuts across party lines and the urban/rural divide.
In fact, when minimum wage initiatives are placed on the ballot rather than being left up to elected officials, they historically receive overwhelming support. In 2004, 70 percent of voters in Florida and Nevada supported increases in those states, and in 2006, voters in Ohio, Nevada, Montana, Missouri, Colorado, and Arizona supported increases. In 2012, in San Jose, Calif., voters easily approved a $2 minimum wage increase to $10.15.
Additionally, opinion polls show that Americans want an increase to the federal minimum wage, too. Workers across the country recognize the importance of making work pay, and that a full-time job should allow a worker to provide for herself and her family.
While these minimum wage increases fall short of providing a living wage for workers, they are an important step in helping working families make ends meet.
The next installment in the Alliance’s Job Gap Economic Prosperity Series, to be released next week, will show that workers across the country fall short of making ends meet and that women and people of color are especially likely to earn low wages. For these workers at the bottom end of the pay scale, an increase in the minimum wage can mean the ability to pay rent and provide food for their family.
Increases to state minimum wages are significant, and impact working families in real ways. However, the federal minimum wage falls well short of providing a living wage for working parents, as shown in the 10 states included in “Families Out of Balance,” released in August. Workers need action not only at the ballot box, but at the federal level, too.
Some members of Congress are urging President Obama to use an executive order to increase wages for federal contractors to $15 per hour; while this would be an important step, millions of working families will still fall short of making ends meet until the federal minimum wage is increased for all workers.
Workers across the country, in red states and blue states, are demanding a raise; it seems about time that their elected officials listen.