[Livingwage] wages in Milwaukee

[Belden Fields]

I have just talked with someone in the Personnel Office of the City  
of Milwaukee.  The City itself pays no one below $9.60/hr. or $20,000/ 
year, who is not a part-time student (the latter category consists  
uniquely of part-time students working as library aides making an  
minimum of $7.30 and going to $8.91).
Beckett and co. are proposing that we pay our beginning county  
nursing home workers less than what some part-time student workers  
can get in Milwaukee!!!!
That is indeed thinking outside of the box, if the name of the box is  
DECENCY.

  Beckett & co. are mixing apples and oranges.  Most Living Wage  
ordinances apply not to the government's own employees.  It is  
assumed that these people will be earning well above the poverty line  
for a family of 4.  It applies to businesses that get contracts,  
subsidies, or tax abatements from tax money.  So when a governmental  
body itself pays below the living wage, that's really extreme.

Hence, both of Beckett's examples, St. Louis (which has established a  
living wage for the private sector based on 100%  the poverty line  
for a family of 4 when it stipulates 130% for a family of 3) and  
Milwaukee which pays all its own employees well above those lines,  
just are not relevant to make his case.  Actually, maybe they are.   
Maybe we should take him up on his St. Louis example and establish  
the county living wage at 130%  of the governmental poverty level for  
a family of three.  That would give our beginning nursing home  
workers a couple of more thousands of dollars per year.  They sure as  
hell deserve it.

Belden