More than 10 million Americans have jobs, but still live below the poverty line. It is one reason driving calls to raise the minimum wage. PBS NewsHour explores growing demands for a living wage in a 2-part series airing Monday, November 4 and Tuesday, November 5, 2013.
Monday, Nov. 4 Living Life on the Edge To get a better sense of what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck, Senior Correspondent Hari Sreenivasan follows Shenita Simon, a fast-food worker in New York, as she struggles to support a family of seven. Even with government assistance, Simon can barely make ends meet.
Tuesday, Nov. 5 The Battle for a Living Wage Business & Economics Correspondent Paul Solman traveled to SeaTac, Washington, site of the country’s latest living wage initiative, to explore the arguments for and against the measure. In an expensive and hotly contested campaign, labor representatives argue that employers paying low wages are essentially shifting costs to the public. One state legislator calculated that for every low wage job at SeaTac, the public spends $20,000 a year in the form of Medicaid, food stamps and housing vouchers. Business owners counter that a living wage would drive up costs and force businesses to lay off or hire fewer workers.
Extended coverage of the arguments for and against a “Living Wage” continues online.
What Does it Take To “Get By” In Your State? For nearly two decades, University of Washington sociologist Diana Pearce has been documenting geographically based “sufficiency wages” — the minimum income required to survive without government or private assistance. Her work forms the basis of a calculator which you can check to see what it takes to “get by” where you live. PBS NewsHour’s Making $ense page will feature video excerpts of Solman’s interview with Diana Pearce and a post by Pearce explaining her research and featuring the calculator.
Why Unpaid Sick Leave Can Be Hazardous to Your Health- One requirement included in SeaTac’s living wage referendum is for employers to provide paid sick leave. Currently, low wage workers can be penalized for taking sick days, so many report to work despite significant illness. Paul Solman reports on how workers without sick leave, especially in a high-traffic area like an airport, can jeopardize everyone’s health, not just their own.
Perspectives in the Battle for a Living Wage The Making $ense page will feature extended excerpts of Paul Solman’s interviews with union leader David Rolf, president of SEIU local 775NW; economist Peter Hall of Simon Fraser University, and local businessman Mike West, co-chairman of Common Sense SeaTac, which opposes the living wage referendum.
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