Tara Holman, a part-time philosophy professor at two Atlanta universities, hates being on the dole, relying occasionally on food stamps or Medicaid.
But $1,700 a month earned by teaching doesn’t cover life’s expenses for the Decatur resident. She turns to public assistance to make ends meet for herself and her 10-year-old son.
“I am a hard worker… no taxpayer should be burdened with anything If I were paid my worth,” said Holman, 39, who protested Wednesday at Clark Atlanta University for $15 an hour. “It’s insane because I’m a taxpayer too.”
She joined hundreds of “Fight for $15” demonstrators in Atlanta, including some who gathered at 6 a.m. outside a west side Burger King and more at Clark Atlanta in the evening. Many other U.S. and foreign cities also saw workers protest wages they say are too low to be livable.
The cause has gained steam with recent announcements by Walmart and some other big employers that they will boost wages, even if only slightly. Some states and cities have boosted minimum wages.
But in other places the idea remains a hard sell. Higher wages, many argue, can cost jobs and result in higher prices for Big Macs and home-bound care.
Legislation to consider raising Georgia’s minimum wage didn’t go far in the most recent legislative session.
“It’s not a question of if (businesses) can afford to pay more,” said Richard Hankins, an attorney with McKenna Long & Aldridge who heads the Atlanta’s firm’s labor and employment division. But “their obligation is to their shareholders to be good business people and make smart business decisions.”
Higher-wage advocates say taxpayers, in essence, subsidize employers that don’t pay workers enough to afford health care and other essentials.
State and federal governments spend $153 billion annually on Medicaid, food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the earned-income tax credit for the working poor, according to a report released this week by the University of California at Berkeley. Georgia spends $539 million a year.
Roughly half of all home-health, fast-food and child-care workers receive such assistance. That includes a quarter of American families headed by part-time or adjunct professors like Holman.
“Any notions we have that people who are on government assistance are being lazy or not working are false because most of the government spending for these programs is going to working people and their families,” said Melissa Johnson, a policy analyst with the liberal Georgia Budget and Policy Institute (GBPI).
Momentum for higher wages, though, is growing.
“We’re going to get it. I’m pretty confident if we keep putting pressure on the businessmen and the lawmakers they’ll eventually have no choice,” said Latonya Allen, a home health worker in Stockbridge who relies on home care for daughter Lakisha, who has cerebral palsy. “They’re going to need somebody to take care of their mamas, fathers and maybe even themselves one day.”
Even amid economic recovery and falling unemployment, wages are largely stagnant for lower- and middle-income Americans. Between 2000 and 2007, according to GBPI, three of every 10 working families were classified as low-income. Today, nearly 40 percent of Georgia families are low income, earning less than $37,538 a year for a family of three.
Yolanda Neal’s $8-an-hour Burger King job barely covers the rent, phone and light bills and food for her four children and grandchild.
“I go to work five, sometimes six days a week and then I hear customers complain about the price on our menu,” said Neal, 37, who lives in Southwest Atlanta and protested Wednesday. “Burger King is like a billion dollar company and it’s not like they can’t afford to give their workers a raise. They just choose not to.”
Standard & Poor’s recently reported that low-wage jobs fuel income inequality which is “a drag on long-run economic growth.” Goldman Sachs reported that a federal minimum wage increase would only moderately impact employment levels.
“All of us should make more money, but, being a business guy, the best way is for the market to set the wage,” said Mark Oshnock, CEO of Visiting Nurse Health System, an Atlanta nonprofit whose 750 nurses and therapists are relatively well-paid. “But the (industry) is market-driven. Our professional therapists have been to school, on average, six years so they should be rewarded.”
Berkeley reports that half of the money Georgia spends on anti-poverty programs goes to families classified as working poor, a status defined as being employed for at least half the year and getting at least 10 hours a week of work.
Holman, without summer income, may apply for Medicaid in June because her gums are swollen and she can’t afford insurance or a dentist.
“Ultimately,” she said, “I may have to leave this field that I love more than anything in the world to make a living.”
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