Planned Parenthood Chapel Hill Health Center has joined over 100 certified employers in offering a living wage of $13.15 an hour.
“We started initially reaching out to business that we knew the owner of, but more and more have started reaching out to us," said Susan Romaine, chairperson of the Orange County Living Wage Initiative.
“Planned Parenthood was a part of the number of applications that are unsolicited," she said.
Romaine said the initiative not only raises awareness about living wage, but actually increases the wages of those at the low end of the pay scale.
“We have now certified 113 employers as of today,” she said. “Not all of them, but some of those employers have lifted wages at the low end of the pay scale – by $564,000 combined,” she said.
Certified businesses report higher worker retention, improved customer relations and overall better worker morale. For those employed in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area, the initiative is especially important considering the community’s high rent costs.
In defining a living wage, Romaine said the initiative uses the universal living wage formula, which sets a rent threshold at 30 percent of worker income.
“If we can pay workers a little bit more so they can actually live in the community in which they work, they can enjoy more family time, can coach a Little League baseball team or do volunteer work in community.”
With the center joining so many other businesses and nonprofits as certified living wage employers, their workers can enjoy the advantages of higher wages as well.
