A Living Wage for All Is Attainable
Viewing workers as an investment and promoting geographic flexibility can elevate their standard of living.
Employers are finding out that luring back workers requires a raise.
Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg
While Congress and the White House wrangle over spending on infrastructure and social programs, the most pressing problem for the U.S. remains little acknowledged and unaddressed: Tens of millions of people work full time and can’t afford food, clothes, housing, health care and a proper education for their children. Their struggle is sowing division, fanning political and social tensions and raising doubts in many Americans’ minds about the merits of capitalism and democracy.
It doesn’t have to be this way. A living wage is attainable for everyone who works full time, but it will require business and government leaders to recognize the problem and work together to fix it, which many of them don’t seem eager to do. Despite the chatter in corporate America about stakeholder capitalism and the importance of workers, about half of the employees of the biggest U.S. companies couldn’t support a family of four. As for Congress, Democrats have offered mostly temporary relief measures, and Republicans don’t appear to be bothered that many of their constituents are struggling.