LWVK Study

By David Burress

From the January 2000 VOTER, LWV/L-DC

Kansas' Department of Social and Rehabilitation
Services (SRS) recently published a report that
attempts to measure the living wage: "Kansas Standard
of Need and self-sufficiency Study, 1999 preliminary
Report," by KSU researchers Jacque E. Gibbons, Bernt
Bratsberg, and Leonard E. Bloomquist. The bottom
line: an average living wage in Kansas varies between
$6.42 an hour for a single adult living alone, and
$20.24 an hour for a single adult supporting an
infant, a preschooler, and a school-age child
(assuming employer-provided health insurance.)

The minimum household budget proposed by the report
is based on methodology that is much more detailed
than the standards used to set the US poverty level.
Interestingly, however, the results are not far away
from Poverty Line standards. In general the authors'
total household budgets are lower than the poverty
line for single adults, but above the poverty line
for larger households with children.

The general approach is to arrive at minimum
household budgets for each of various types of
families, then to calculate the "living wage" as the
wage rate that would be needed to support the budget
if all adults in the household were working full time
without vacations but also without overtime.

The "living wage" rates proposed by the report are
actually understated. The assumed household budget is
strictly limited to necessities. It omits "luxuries"
such as time off for sickness, transportation other
then to and from work, education and reading,
entertainment and recreation, religious and political
participation, renters' insurance, retirement
savings, and alcohol and tobacco.

Empirically, however, nearly all low income
households will forego some of the "necessities" if
they must do so in order to obtain some amount of the
listed "luxuries." Whether or not one believes such
consumption patterns are wise, full-time employment
at the wage rates given by the authors would rarely
result in low income households obtaining the full
amount of necessities considered by the authors to be
needed for self-sufficiency.

The report is intended for use by SRS. For reasons
having to do with SRS program administration, the
report also explicitly omits the following items that
would usually be viewed as necessities: school fees,
special dietary needs, home furnishings, extra
bedrooms to avoid age or gender mixing of offspring,
and transportation to day care.

For each consumption item that IS included in the
household budget, the authors faced two problems:

     1. Deciding what actual types and
     quantities of goods and services are
     necessary in each category to maintain a
     minimal standard of living.

     2. Finding data on what those goods and
     services would actually cost on average in
     Kansas in l999. The data sources used were
     entirely reasonable, given the limitations
     on their resources and on data available
     from other sources.

This report does what it sets out to do very well and
provides a very good starting point for proposing
living wage laws. For application to the city-level
living wage laws, we would need to address at least
the following additional questions:

     1. Adjusting the results for differences in
     prices across Kansas communities

     2. Adjusting the results for jobs which do
     not include good health insurance plans,
     commonly the case for low wage employment

     3. Considering whether to adjust the
     results for some of the items left out of
     the budget, as described above.

Back to Works of the League

Back to Top

Back to Home