The Living Wage Movement: Its Significance to Urban Politics and Citizenship

Abstract

It is commonplace to think of the U.S. living wage movement, which has been responsible for the passage of more than a hundred ordinances over the last decade, as a movement for economic justice. The quest for livable wages for those at the bottom of the wage ladder is, after all, a matter of fairness. There is no question that many of the workers affected by such laws will be better off as a result of this movement. There is even reason to believe that many employers forced to pay higher wages will also be better off in the long term as they realize cost savings through productivity gains, reduced turnover, and lower costs of training and recruitment.1Although the living wage has been a response to the declining value of the minimum wage and the privatization of municipal services, it is also the inevitable byproduct of the evolution of urban politics. The living wage movement is a response to the policies that many urban governments have felt compelled to pursue, owing in large part to their unique position in the federal framework. Thus, as these campaigns proliferate, there will clearly be an impact on the urban political landscape. Moreover, as the campaigns serve to empower the otherwise disenfranchised, they will enable affected workers to claim something crucial to the operation of democracy: citizenship.