Disney wage fight tells area economic tale.

Right now, Disney is fighting with its employees over wages.

Disney has offered raises of at least 50 cents an hour. The unions want more.

I’m not here today to tell you what those salaries should be. I’m here to tell you the reality of what they are.

See, these negotiations have revealed something I’d never seen before — breakdowns of the salaries at Central Florida’s largest employer.

Disney’s Unite Here reported that 11,046 of full-time union members make between $10 and $10.99 an hour. That’s not ”survival” level income, according to the United Way of Florida.

Another 4,184 make between $11 and $11.99. That’s still sub-survival.

Many employees make more. Certainly the executives. Disney says tipped employees can make $35 or more.

But the company says its own numbers show that the average hourly wage for its 30,000-plus front-line union workers is $13.34 .

That’s the average for full-time workers, many of whom love their employer … $27,747 a year. This is a big part of why Orlando is one of the lowest-wage metros in the U.S.

And here’s the starker, biggerpicture point: Nothing that happens in this contract negotiation will really change that. Even if Disney gives minimum raises of 80 cents or even $2, wages will still be low.

This is the reality of our community. And it’s worth talking about, because wages drive an economy. And too often, leaders get caught up spinning a fairy-tale version of what pay in Central Florida actually looks like.

We can start by acknowledging that Disney’s pay isn’t low by industry standards. In fact, it pays more and offers better benefits than many tourism companies.

The Census Bureau reports that the average salary for a nonsupervisory worker in America’s “leisure and hospitality” industries is $13.46 an hour, right around Disney’s average.

The issue is that the comparison bar we’re using is so low. It’s like comparing height among dwarfs. Most other major industries pay much more.

The average job in manufacturing pays $26.77 an hour. “Information” jobs pay $38.45. Construction pays $29.06.

Those wages allow families to live stable lives where they can buy houses, save for college and save for emergencies.

Wages in our main industry do not.

It’s not an ideological issue. It’s a mathematical one. And it’s the reason the United Way of Florida conducted a study a few years ago — to help the public understand why people who work full-time in this state struggle to tread water.

What they found was that the average family of four needs $53,856 simply to “survive.”

Not to save up any money. Not to get ahead. Just to live. These people may still rely upon charities, friends

and government programs to help them with unexpected expenses. (Remember: We all pay a price when workers can’t make ends meet.)

“All of these people who we used to think of as middle class, one little problem puts them into a tailspin,” said Bob Brown, the former CEO of United Way who led the nonprofit when it began measuring income issues. “They are 50 percent of the people in this community. It’s not like this everywhere. Really, it’s just us and Vegas.”

And he noted that, even if Disney raised every single wage to at least $15 an hour — a number often cited by wage activists — those employees would still live in survival mode.

It’s not about Disney being a bad company. Or a good company. It is simply a low-paying company. And even if every single low-wage worker got a master’s degree and another job, our industry would still require low-wage workers to function.

As far as these wage negotiations go, Disney notes that its starting wage of $10 an hour is already higher than the law requires and that it wants to offer raises.

“We agree that our Cast Members deserve a raise,” the company said in a statement. The Sentinel has reported that Disney has offered raises of at least 3 percent or 50 cents an hour, whichever is higher, each year for two years straight.

Unite Here Local 362 leader Eric Clinton counters: “People who make $10 an hour, when they get a 50-cent raise, are still poor.”

Unite Here wants anyone who has worked for Disney for three years or more to make at least $15 an hour — above the United Way’s “survival” level if two parents in the same home earn that wage.

I don’t mean to trivialize any of the wage hikes discussed. (A 50-cent hourly raise means $80 more each month — enough to pay a water bill and maybe buy groceries for a week.)

But I do mean to ask you to look at the numbers. They’ll help you understand why we are community full of hard-working people who live on the edge.