Minute in Support of a Universal Living Wage Initiative

As a body of the Religious Society of Friends, we recognize the serious problems of homelessness and shelter poverty in our community and nation due to the insufficiency of the minimum wage to allow many millions in America to pay for adequate housing.  Two million of our neighbors in America are homeless.  Many of these individuals, along with their families, are homeless because they work for minimum wage and cannot afford a place to live on their earnings. (1) This is a form of economic violence that threatens people’s opportunity to obtain the basic needs of life – food and shelter.  Friends’ long-standing peace testimony compels us to speak out against this form of injustice in our communities. (2)

Therefore, we join American Friends Service Committee and other organizations and individuals that support the Universal Living Wage initiative.  As we understand it, the Universal Living Wage formula ensures that a 40 hour per week, minimum wage worker will be able to afford to rent at least an efficiency apartment anywhere in the United States while not spending more than 30% of their income on housing.  We endorse the Universal Living Wage initiative in the hopes that shelter poverty and homelessness will be eradicated for many of the individuals who do not have an affordable place to live in our affluent society.

Approved by Chesapeake Quarterly Meeting of Friends, gathered at Patapsco Friends Meeting, Ellicott City, Maryland.  (6/13/04)

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John McKusick, Clerk

(1)   Nationwide, three of ten households pay more than 30% of their incomes for housing; some 14 million spend more than 50%, and another 17 million pay from 30 – 50% of their earnings for shelter.  (Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University, The State of the Nation’s Housing, 2003)

(2)   Friends’ concern for equality similarly requires us to object to the inequality of federal housing expenditures.  As of 2002, the government paid $118 billion in tax deductions and credits to support home ownership, but only $30 billion in federal subsidies to help low income families with affordable housing. (National Low Income Housing Coalition. Changing Priorities:  The Federal Budget and Housing Assistance, 1976 – 2007.  Washington, D.C.:  National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2002.)