Nearly two in five employees in Orange County are paid less than $12.75 per hour, the wage necessary to cover living costs. The Orange County Living Wage Project has benevolent intentions, but consumers will not exclusively patronize business that pay a living wage.
The legislature should amend the law which prevents municipalities from establishing a living wage mandate. Only then can the town ensure its citizens are being fairly compensated.
Why should this issue be up to the town to tackle? On a state and national level, our policymakers have failed their working-class constituents. The real value of minimum wage in our state has not increased since President Ronald Reagan took office, according to the Department of Labor.
Congress is gridlocked, so it is unlikely that President Barack Obama’s vision of a higher federal minimum wage will be realized.
On International Workers’ Day last year, Seattle announced it was phasing in a $15 per hour minimum wage. Based on the number of employees, businesses must increase their hourly wage over a span of years. Chapel Hill business owners should be able to adapt to paying a living wage if the increase is made gradually.
Bill Lester, an associate professor of city and regional planning at UNC, published a study that found living wage laws in California cities did not significantly impact business growth or employment.
Local decisions are being subverted by the legislature, which is clearly out of touch with the issues that face its constituents. Chapel Hill’s town council should push the legislature to turn over this power to local government.
