AS LIVING Wage Week at the University comes to a close, important concerns remain about the abilities of a living wage to put an end to the systemic causes of poverty. Often, living wage programs are criticized as "band-aids" for the problems which result from poverty rather than definitive solutions to those problems. At first glance, this characterization of the living wage movement may seem appealing -- for the living wage seemingly does little to improve the relative income levels of the impoverished. Instead, it seeks to boost their absolute earnings in the short-term. But doing so affords lower wage-earners more time for and greater access to education, which will greatly reduce structural inequalities over time.
Understood at its most reductive level, living wage legislation attempts to address immediate concerns of rampant poverty. Its mantra is that no working member of society should be forced to live below the poverty line, and therefore it aims at securing low-wage workers' vital needs: clothing, adequate housing and food, among others. A "living wage" is a dynamic calculation based on a region's cost of living and the number of family members that a worker must support.
Critics of the movement often voice a concern that a living wage will not actually improve the situations of impoverished people because it will do nothing to elevate them from the lowest rungs of the social ladder. But this view wholly neglects the long-term positive effects of an immediate increase in low-wage workers' incomes. Without a living wage, for instance, those who work are largely denied opportunities for advancement, which would be more readily available if they were able to broaden their sets of marketable skills. These workers are confined to the lowest-paying jobs, but are not given any way to improve their overall situations.
A living wage, then, can serve as a realistic precursor to upward social mobility. Because it allows those living at or below the poverty line to improve their financial situations both appreciably and quickly, it provides them with more opportunity to sustain an upward trend and gives the impoverished an impetus to do so.
Education becomes integral at this point. For example, a single mother who had previously worked two minimum-wage jobs to make ends meet might only need one job once a living wage has been implemented, giving her the time required to enhance her skill set. Subsequently, these new skills will give her the option to move into a better paying position -- and it is likely that this trend will continue.
In order for such a system to be successful, however, a sizable effort must be made to provide affordable and accessible education and training to this sector of the population. Night classes which prepare workers to pass the General Education Development test, as well as vocational training in numerous fields, are necessary to boost the relative status levels of these individuals.
Beyond allowing workers to expand their marketable skills, education is also an important factor in ending the causes and effects of discrimination which tend to keep the impoverished from climbing up the proverbial social ladder. Frequently, even workers who are on welfare are characterized as lazy, many impoverished single women are slandered as "welfare queens," and few are provided with realistic opportunities to change their situations. Systems such as "welfare to work" have been implemented in many locales with varying degrees of success, yet they still leave many people living at or below the poverty line with very limited opportunities to increase their incomes more than marginally.
Much of this has to do with systematic discrimination of the impoverished, who are frequently viewed as burdens on society by members of the middle and upper socioeconomic classes. Combined with limited access to education, this cycle only perpetuates itself -- and stereotypes of the lazy low-wage worker will be reinforced. But education can also provide a means by which workers can prove that these negative stereotypes can be proven untrue. They simply must be given the opportunity to do so.
For living wage ordinances to be successful, they cannot stand alone. Otherwise, they will have only short-term beneficial effects. Wages can only be adjusted so much before we face economic crises such as inflation. Instead, living wage policies should be pursued with long-term rehabilitation in mind. Immediate increases in workers' incomes, when taken advantage along with government-sponsored educational opportunities, provide the best means for upward social mobility among the impoverished.
Todd Rosenbaum's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at trosenbaum@cavalierdaily.com.
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