09-02-2016, 03:39 PM
Over the past fifteen years,one of the chief accomplishments of community organizadons in the United States has been the rapid proliferadon of living wage ordinances in American municipalities. Since the first ordinance was passed in Baldmore in 1994, more than 140 cides and towns have enacted their own versions of living wage legisladon, and a number of addidonal 34 Social Policy | Summer | 2009 campaigns are underway. These ordinances generally establish a requirement that private businesses or organizations benefidng from public money must pay their employees a wage which allows them fully to cover the costs of food, shelter, clothing, and health care while leaving some form of savings for unexpected emergencies. The campaign for living wages rests on the logic that governments and taxpayers should not be subsidizing poverty wages, wbich they are essendally doing when low-income workers are forced to turn to food stamps, emergency medical care, or other social services in order to support their families.