We have talked about the difference between the living wage and the minimum wage, and how many localities and cities and towns in the United States have chosen to have their own living wage or living wage, oftentimes higher than the state or the federal minimum wage.
In this case, the town of Sarasota, Florida, might be leaning toward instituting a living wage for its lowest paid workers. The city commissioners there have started considering whether or not they should allow the town’s voters to give the up or down to a living wage salary for the town. The reason—or at least one of the reasons that the city commissioners are pondering such a move—is that Sarasota is one expensive town to live in, so workers, their thinking go, might need the extra boost in their incomes just to make their ends meets—hence, the term living wage.
The bill under consideration would make it so that employers with more than 50 employees on their payrolls, and that take more than $100,000 in assistance from the city, would be required to at least pay their workers $9.96 per hour. That number sound a little odd? Well, the reason for that not so round figure is the fact that, as I have explained before in the past, a living wage is directly based on the poverty level on the federal level—and that poverty level in fact as it is for a family with four members.
So in essence, that $9.96 per hour would get workers to that annual salary equating to the poverty level for a family of four members. Some commissioners even consider that that number is to low, and would consider an hourly rate as high as $14.45 per hour, which would be the rate that a family of four would need to make in order to afford housing in Sarasota.
