“There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent
us from paying an adequate wage to every American citizen… there
is nothing except shortsidedness to prevent us from guaranteeing
an annual minimum and livable income for every American family.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
Santa Barbara
for a Living Wage is a Coalition of labor, faith and community
based organizations that is proposing
a living wage ordinance for the City of Santa Barbara. The
Living Wage ensures that anyone doing work for the city will
be paid a living wage of $13.40 an hour. The living wage
numbers come from the Annual Median Income developed by Housing
and Urban Development (HUD). In California, a worker earning
the Minimum Wage ($6.75 per hour) must work 126 hours per
week in order to afford a two-bedroom unit at the area’s
Fair Market rent. The proposed living wage is what it would
take for a single person to rent a studio apartment in Santa
Barbara County, paying 30% of their salary in rent.
