Livable Wages to American Citizens

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Livable Wages to American Citizens

By

Kimberly Whitfield

OGMT 338 - Business Law

Cohort- Delta 26

Facilitator – Mr. Ben Allen

September 21, 2005

Livable Wages to American Citizens

        Americans today are suffering from increases in rising

prices in everything, yet the minimum wages take years

for an increase.  This is an injustice, especially to the

underclass society.  The government should implement a system to insure that all workers are paid “livable wages”. Livable wages are the amount of income needed for a family to meet its basic needs without using public assistance.

Public assistance policy discussions often include the term self-sufficiency. Different meanings are associated with the term, depending upon who uses it. One might argue that no American is truly self-sufficient in that we each rely on not only our own resources, but also on public services, benefits from fiscal and monetary policies, and the contributions of friends, family members and others to our economic well-being.  

Necessary wages for essential needs, provides self-

sufficiency standards for everyone in America. It uses costs of basic survival needs like housing and food and takes into account family size, composition and location. This approach allows more variation than the official poverty measure. It assumes that all adults in the household work, recognizes that childcare costs vary with age of child, and incorporates regional cost differences not addressed by the official measure of poverty.

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        Everyone needs enough income to pay for the basic necessities of daily living: shelter, food, clothing, and transportation. Without a livable-wage income, people suffer a lack of dignity and a variety of social and health problems. The livable-wage income indicator is defined as the percent of the population living in households with a total income that is less than twice the poverty level, as defined by the federal government.

Poverty by race and ethnicity is only reported at the 100% poverty level. The proportion of African Americans, Native Americans, Asian American- Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics living in poverty increased from ...

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