Full Citation
Title: The Political Economy of the Living Wage: A Study of Four Cities
Citation Type: Book, Whole
Publication Year: 2005
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: Living wage campaigns are frequently presented as a quest for economic justice. Often missed, however, is that the living wage is very much a political issue at the local level, and that the typical living wage campaign needs to be understood within the context of urban theory. This book explores what factors led to the adoption of living wage laws in four cities: Los Angeles, Detroit, Baltimore, and New Orleans. The changing economic base of each city is illustrated on the basis of IPUMS data from 1950-1990. In response to each city's changing economic base, each city's governing regime felt compelled to pursue a set of policies aimed at revitalizing their economies. To the extent that these regimes felt compelled to pursue policies such as the outsourcing of municipal services in order to create favorable business climates intended to attract investment, living wage movements can be viewed as the inevitable political backlash. Living wage movements, then, were the results of policy failure; they were a by-product of the failure to adequately address the changes that were occurring, mainly the changing urban economic base and growing income inequality.
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Levin-Waldman, Oren M.
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
Publisher Location: Armonk, NY
Pages:
Volume:
Edition:
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other, Poverty and Welfare
Countries: