Why Don't We Pay People Enough? 8 Facts About America's Struggling Working People

[Igel]

3. "Living wage" is a content-free term most of the time.

It seems to mean "enough to live on". But is it enough for a mother of two to enable herself and her two to live on? A single 18-year-old male? A family of four?

Usually it's just a restatement of "the payscale needs to be higher." The minimum set seems to be enough to suffice for a single person--perhaps the woman with two kids, if there's no day care expense and lots of government aid. But it's only a "living wage" in precisely the right context.

I worked for an NGO that had four different pay scales for roughly equivalent work.

A woman, years of seniority, got a paycheck that ranked 3 out of 4 (1 being highest).

A man, with several years less seniority, got the top paycheck, almost twice the first woman's.

A man, the newest hire, got the #2 pay check.

A young woman, there only a year or two, got the #4 paycheck.

Sounds openly sexist and illegal. Yet it was based on the notion of "living wage". The man with the largest paycheck had a family of 4 to support. The woman with the most seniority lived with her father, the boss. The young woman was engaged to be married and would be leaving soon; she wasnt' building anything and survived just fine until she got married. The young man was presumably saving up and would establish his own family.

Different needs, different pay scales. I think of "living wage" is better defined as "flexible, even if illegal." Most wouldn't.