A living wage for all should be the goal

The ‘living wage’ has hit a significant milestone, topping $20 an hour. From July 1 it will be $20.20. Which is all very well if you’re in a job where the existence of such a concept would mean a boost to your earnings. Working for an ‘‘accredited living wage employer’’ can make a real difference for those at the lower end of the wage scale.

Which means it’s a good idea, right? So why aren’t more companies part of the initiative?

Just 66 organisations were signed up for 2017, though it’s fairly clear there are others paying the living wage. Wellington City Council was one of the highestprofile entities to trumpet its support when the living wage ‘movement’ first came to prominence in 2013, though its plan to extend the provision to outside contractors saw it become embroiled in court action with the capital’s Chamber of Commerce.

A glance through the accredited employers on the livingwage.org.nz website offers one possible clue to the low level of support for the concept. For the most part, those accredited are organisations with social action as their driving force; numerous unions, church-based support groups, Greenpeace, Oxfam NZ and two political parties, Labour and the Greens.

Not a lot of profit motive there, then. Some for whom profit is the driving force of their businesses might even say the concept sounds ‘a bit socialist’ based on that makeup. It does, a bit. Except in New Zealand, there’s nothing to stop businesses or individuals attempting to earn as much as they want to.

Of course there are plenty of legitimate reasons why a living wage would not be a desirable thing, most of them financial. For some businesses it would simply be too expensive to pay, or would force a trade-off between wages and staff numbers, potentially putting some out of jobs.

It would be easy to argue that our minimum wage – $15.75 from April 1 and certainly higher in comparative terms than in many developed countries – provides workers with all the protection they need. But try finding one of those workers who agrees.

The minimum wage is a social safety net, an absolute base standard of income to help lowskilled workers somehow keep body and soul together, nothing more.

The original NZ living wage, calculated in 2013, was defined as ‘‘the income necessary to provide workers and their families with the basic necessities of life and allow them to participate in society’’.

That last phrase is the rub. Should we be fostering a society where some can just survive, effectively a subculture of the permanently impoverished? Clearly not.

Plainly, ‘‘participating in society’’ is something we should all be able to do. Which is why employers who can pay a living wage should.