By Laurie Allee
I'm stepping back onto my South Pas virtual front porch to talk about something that is important to me: raising the minimum wage in South Pasadena to $15 per hour.
When I moved to Los Angeles in 1988, I was young, idealistic
and broke. Lucky for me, I had an
education and some basic office skills that allowed me to find temporary work
while I was trying to get my career off the ground – and eventually pay back
all of my student loans.
I’ll never forget when I signed on with a local temp agency -- remember
this is in 1988 – and the agency representative told me that with my administrative
skills of typing 60 words per minute as well as my knowledge of Microsoft Word
and Excel, I would make $12 per hour on my assignments. If I could do transcription, I’d earn $15 per
hour. These numbers were for basic secretarial
work. At the time, rents in Pasadena
were about $750 a month for an average apartment.
Flash forward 30 years later, and those same apartments go
for an average of $2100 a month. I won’t
even mention other costs of living. We
all know that they, too, have risen dramatically in three decades.
Wages, however, have stagnated. That local temp agency will now
offer about the same as they did three decades ago: an average of $12-15 per hour -- with a little more for transcription. Temp agencies are a good place to judge
salaries in general because they represent what companies are willing to pay
their workers. Many of these temp jobs lead
to permanent positions – at similar hourly rates. Minimum wage is a large driver of most low to
middle wage salaries because as long as the minimum stays low, the next level
(that old 60 word per minute Microsoft word secretarial job, for example) stays low,
too.
We can’t stand by and say that the Fight for Fifteen is a
pie-in-the-sky idea if we look at the reality of today’s cost of living. (That $15 I earned in 1988, for example, is worth $32 today if we adjust for inflation. I can promise you no temp job is offering
anyone $32 an hour to do Microsoft Word.)
Minimum wage drives all wages.
Multiple studies conclude that total annual incomes rise significantly
after a minimum wage increase.
So we have to ask ourselves in South Pasadena: why are we dragging our feet on something so
obvious? Why are we pretending that
paying fair wages is unnecessary here – when just blocks away the cities of
Pasadena and Los Angeles think otherwise?
Why do we in South Pasadena assume it’s just too much of a hassle?
South Pasadena can afford $15 an hour.
A living minimum wage is a hallmark of a functioning civilization. South Pasadena must join the growing list of other
California cities who recognize $15 an hour is not an extravagance, but the
bare minimum we can fairly pay workers to do a job. A $15 minimum wage would begin to reverse decades
of growing pay inequality between the lowest-paid workers and the middle
class. Here are some national minimum
wage statistics from the Economic Policy Institute:
- · Failure to increase the minimum wage accounts 48% of the increase in inequality between women at the middle and bottom of wage distribution since 1979.
- · The average worker who would benefit from a $15 minimum wage is a 35-year-old woman with some college coursework who works full time.
- · Fewer than 10% of minimum wage earners are teens, and more than half are adults between the ages of 25 and 54. More than half are women.
- · 44% have some college experience – many with outstanding student loan debt.
- · 28% have children.
- · The average minimum wage worker with a spouse or child provides 52% of his or her family income.
We must join Los Angeles, Pasadena and other local cities in
recognizing that $15 an hour is necessary for workers to be able to afford to live in our community and contribute
to our economy. I want to
attract workers to work in my city. I want them to be paid fairly. I want them to spend money at our local
businesses – to shop on Mission and have dinner at Gus's or Bistro de la Gare and then have enough to splurge on the Raymond
at Fair Oaks Pharmacy (and then maybe stop off at Rite Aid for antacid...)
I want my city to do the right thing.
If you agree with me, join other South Pasadena residents at
tomorrow’s City Council Meeting to let our city officials know. South Pasadena can afford a $15 an hour
minimum wage.
Learn more here.
