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Out of Reach

We live in times of unprecedented prosperity. The data on the cost of rental housing that the National Low Income Housing Coalition has assembled in Out of Reach shows us, though, that not everyone who contributes to the prosperity of our nation is able to share in it. The proposal to raise the minimum wage by $1.00 over the next two years that I have introduced in the United States Senate this year will enable more people to share in the economic well-being of the nation, and help more people to afford better housing. I'm honored to stand with the Coalition as they release this annual study of housing costs and the minimum wage.

Workers at the minimum wage do not earn enough to pay for adequate housing. Over 11.4 million workers earn less than $6.15 an hour. Working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, minimum wage workers earn only $10,700 a year. For want of adequate housing, they have difficulty holding on to stable jobs. Their children grow up exposed to lead paint. They eat less and are colder in the winter because they must decide between paying the rent and buying groceries, between paying the heating bill or buying warm clothes.

Others enjoying the unprecedented prosperity of our time have lavish rewards to show for it. The median salary and bonus for Chief Executive Officers in 1997 was $770 an hour. At that rate, it takes an average CEO less than two days to earn what a minimum wage worker earns in an entire year. The same CEO would work 64 minutes to earn the monthly fair market rent for a two bedroom federally assisted housing unit in Washington, DC. CEOs work hard and must make difficult decisions. Minimum wage workers, forty percent of whom are the sole breadwinners in their families also work hard and must make difficult decisions about how to pay for rent, food, clothing, or medical care.

Nearly sixty percent of minimum wage workers are women. Almost half work full time. One third are Blacks and Latinos. According to Out of Reach, in these times of unprecedented prosperity, at $5.15 an hour, it would take 80 hours of work a week to afford the fair market rent set by the federal government for assisted housing in 195 metropolitan areas in the United States. In 70 metropolitan areas they must work more than 100 hours a week. In no state, county, or metropolitan area can a minimum wage worker work a 40 hour week and afford the two bedroom assisted housing standard.

For minimum wage workers, this unprecedented prosperity is someone else's prosperity. The difficult decisions of minimum wage work set their own harsh precedents for workers and their families -- anxiety about work, housing, hunger, and health. The price of work should not be daily fears that undermine family and community ties, and that mock the dignity of work and workers. The price of prosperity should not be unfair wages for those who tend the sick, care for our children, clean offices, and serve food. The minimum wage is about people's ability to afford a decent home and a decent life. No one who works for a living should have to live in poverty.

-- Senator Edward M. Kennedy
 

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