Summary: A Living Wage

The author neglects the fact that large corporations do not pay the majority of minimum wage earners, small businesses do (Bartlett, 2004). The author of A Living Wage also suggested the creation of a Living Wage Board in each city (2014). The responsibility of this board would include examining the businesses’ income, and wealth. If this board decided that the business could increase wages, it would have the power to force that business to do so. This would increase the responsibility of managers to become the “middle-man” to ensure that the goals of the company are able to support the increase in wages as the Living Wage Board sees fit. However, there is a chance for a communication microbarrier. The Living Wage Board could see the increased revenue of a company and their only perception is to increase the labor rate. The

Thomas Sowell (2004) helps finish them: a third of those workers making $18,800 or less per year are part-time, and another third of those workers are no more than 25 years old. Now that we have the full statistic, we can understand that not all jobs provide a living wage, and they are for teenagers, young adults, unskilled people, and those that are looking for that supplementary income. A teenage or part-time worker will not earn the same as a full-time adult worker. Management understands that these minimum wage workers are developing skills and provide the necessary training and assistance. This commitment to the employee’s growth, influences the worker to continue on that path, which inevitably increases pay. Which leads to the next unfinished statistic listed previously by Business Week: the workers in the bottom 20 percent are not the same workers over the past 30 years. The bottom 20 percent of workers do not remain inexperienced for 30 years. (Sowell 2004). The role of management is to ensure that the employee can gain experience by leading, motivating, and