FAQs
What is a Living Wage?
A living wage addresses the essential financial needs for basic living tools such as shelter, healthcare, childcare, and nutrition.
Why a Living Wage?
When one earns less than a livable wage, he or she is forced to make undesirable choices such as working two or more jobs, working longer hours, making longer commutes, sharing a residence, or giving up basic items such as a telephone or insurance. A healthy community has a diverse and sustainable economy that pays livable wages and offers meaningful work. – Region 9 Economic Development District of SW Colorado
What is the Living Wage in La Plata County?
In 2018, a living wage for a single person in La Plata County is $13.31 per hour for an individual and increases to $23.41 per hour for one adult and one preschool child and $28.84 for two adults with one preschool and one school age child. Calculation by Thrive! and Region 9 Economic Development District of SW Colorado.
How do wages in La Plata County compare to the local living wage and State minimum wages?
At least 27% of working people in La Plata County are employed in occupations where the median wage is less than the living wage. – US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013 La Plata County data
The 2018 minimum wage in Colorado is $10.20 for hourly workers and $7.18 for tipped workers. – Colorado Department of Employment and Labor.
Will living wage laws cause job losses, especially among low-wage employees?
The most methodologically sound, quantitative study conducted to date on 15 cities implementing living wage laws showed that employment in the low-wage industries most likely impacted by the living wage laws was unaffected by the change. – American Progress Action
Will living wages increase consumer costs?
A recent study found that a $12 per hour minimum wage would provide substantial benefits to workers in low-income families, while the costs to consumers would be small. – University of California, Berkeley
Aren’t low-wage workers mostly young people who use their money for recreational purposes?
This is a common perception which is no longer accurate. Today the average low-wage worker is 35 years old and is often the bread-winner with a family who depends on their earnings. – Economic Policy Institute, Doug Hall & Dan Essrow, March 12, 2014.
Isn’t education the answer to correcting low wages?
While education is one key to an improved standard of living, many low-wage workers are educated. In 2012, 46% of low-wage workers had some college and 79% had completed high school or GED. Many of the jobs filled in the “recovery” are low wage jobs filled by educated people that previously had higher-paying jobs. Economic Policy Institute, Lawrence Mishel, Jan 23, 2014.
How will living wages affect our local economy?
- Individuals and families will have a better quality of life.
- Sales will increase as workers are able to buy more goods and services.
- Lower wage workers tend to spend, rather than save their income, putting more dollars into the local economy
- Increased sales will drive job creation
- Employee turnover will decrease, saving employer training expenses
- Satisfied employees will be more productive, increasing product quality and customer satisfaction
- Tax expenses for social safety nets such as Food Stamps and Medicaid will decrease
RESOURCES
Employment Law Resource Guide
Whether you’re a part–time employee or the CEO of a major company, employment law is relevant to you and your workplace. The United States Department of Labor was founded in 1913 and, in its 100–year–plus history, has constantly worked to protect the rights and safety of workers across the country. Today, employment law is as important as ever. In this guide you’ll find more than 50 resources, including how–to guides, websites, articles and more, all of which can help you to better understand employment law and its many nuances.
http://www.jobhero.com/employment-law-guide/
Wage Theft Website
Millions of dollars in wages are stolen from workers across the US every year when employees work off-the-clock, their tips are stolen, they are not paid overtime and are misclassified as exempt employees. This great new website has resources for workers who may be victims of wage theft, and for individuals and organizations wanting to learn more about wage theft and take action to stop it. http://www.wagetheft.org
TED Talk
“How Economic Inequality Harms Societies”. Richard Wilkinson, Ted Global 2011.
We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. Wilkinson charts the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far apart: real effects on health, lifespan, even such basic values as trust.
ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson
You Tube
Elizabeth Warren explains what happened to the middle class since the 1970s. 13 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFq-YYZ58SI
Articles
Surviving to Thriving Michelle Webster, January 2015.
Women comprise nearly half of the labor force and are essential to the economic engine of the state. Yet, women continue to face disparities in income and opportunity and are more likely to live in poverty than men.
Funded by a grant from the Women’s Foundation of Colorado, this report reveals the obstacles low-income women and single mothers encounter in their struggle to make ends meet – and the risks of perpetuating the cycle of poverty with their children.
Taking a detailed look at the economic and educational challenges facing these women and their families, the report also highlights policies that acknowledge the realities of these women’s lives – giving them a fair shot at getting ahead.
Films
Inequality For All In this 2013 award winning documentary, economist Robert Reich explains the effects of the widening income inequality gap on not only the U.S. economy but American democracy itself. Available on Netflix.
Losing Ground: The Cliff Effect Simply being employed does not mean economic self-sufficiency for women in Colorado. In fact, it may work against them. This 2013 award-winning documentary is based on research by the Women’s Foundation of Colorado.
Local organizations
Region 9 Economic Development District. The Region 9 mission is to be a regional leader, working cooperatively with the private and public sectors to enhance the economic conditions in the area, and improve the region’s economic prosperity. Region 9 EDD endorses Thrive! and collaborates with us in calculating the Living Wage for La Plata County
State and National organizations
Colorado Center on Law and Policy “Achieving economic self-sufficiency is about breaking the cycle of poverty so that families can support their basic needs and thrive free from public assistance. CCLP advances a path to economic self-sufficiency for low-income Coloradans by researching, analyzing and advocating policies that promote sustainable wages for low-income Coloradans”.
Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) advances the rights of workers by engaging diverse faith communities into action, from grassroots organizing to shaping policy at the local, state and national levels.
NELP National Employment Law Project ” In partnership with national, state and local allies, we promote policies and programs that create good jobs, strengthen upward mobility, enforce hard-won worker rights, and help unemployed workers regain their economic footing through improved benefits and services”.
Books
Beyond $15: Immigrant Workers, Faith Activists, and the Revival of the Labor Movement. Jonathan Rosenblume, 2017….With captivating narrative and insightful commentary, labor organizer Jonathan Rosenblum reveals the inside story of the first successful fight for $15 that has renewed a national labor movement through bold strategy and broad inclusiveness. Just outside Seattle, an unlikely alliance of Sea-Tac airport workers, union and community activists, and clery staged face-to-face confrontations with corporate leaders to unite a diverse, largely immigrant workforce in a struggle over power between airport workers and business and political elites. Beyond $15 provides provides and inspirational blueprint for a powerful, all-inclusive Labor movement and a call for workers to reclaim their power in the new economy.
Building a Healthy Economy form the Bottom Up: Harnessing Real-World Experience for Transformative Change. Anthony Flaccavento, 2016. …a comprehensive primer on the transition to a new economy – the movement to rewire the economy for equity and ecological sustainability.
Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good. Chuck Collins, 2016. As inequality drives deep divides between the haves and have nots in America, class war brews. On one side, the wealthy wield power and advantage, wittingly or not, to keep the system operating in their favor—all while retreating into enclaves that separate them further and further from the poor and working class. On the other side, those who find it increasingly difficult to keep up or get ahead lash out—waging a rhetorical war against the rich and letting anger and resentment, however justifiable, keep us from seeing new potential solutions.
But can we suspend both class wars long enough to consider a new way forward? Is it really good for anyone that most of society’s wealth is pooling at the very top of the wealth ladder? Does anyone, including the one percent, really want to live in a society plagued by economic apartheid? Collins calls for a ceasefire and invites the wealthy to come back home, investing themselves and their wealth in struggling communities. And he asks the non-wealthy to build alliances with the one percent and others at the top of the wealth ladder. Collins’s national and local solutions and offer an unexpected, fresh take on one of our most intransigent problems.
Runaway Inequality. Les Leopold, 2015. …”the book has many virtues besides its timeliness. And more than most of the other high-profile books on inequality in recent years, Runaway Inequality doesn’t just explain where the U.S. economy went wrong; it also explains how American citizens can organize to get it back on track.”
Forked: A New Standard for American Dining. Saru Jayaraman, 2016. “An eloquent, highly researched argument for why restaurant employees’ pay and benefits are a vital measure of quality in American dining”
Wage Theft in America. Kim Bobo, Founder of Interfaith Worker Justice, understands from years of work in the field, how billions of dollars worth of wages are stolen from millions of workers in the US every year…and what we can do about it.