Town of Ithaca backs countywide living wage

Following in the footsteps of numerous community groups throughout Tompkins County, the Town of Ithaca town board formally decided to back a push to create legislation setting a countywide minimum wage, indexing it to the regional median living wage for the state.

“This is a movement not only starting locally but around the country,” Town Board Supervisor Herb Engman said.

The town’s position is based on a study conducted by Alternatives Federal Credit Union, which has reassessed the county’s living wage each year since 1994. This year’s study, released in June, set the living wage for those with employer-provided health insurance at $13.77 an hour, or $14.34 for those who must purchase their own health insurance.

Consequences of the living wage, if enacted, are expected to stimulate the local economy and decrease the county’s spending on social services.

According to numbers from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of May 2014, an estimated 19,394 people in the Ithaca metropolitan area work in professions whose mean wages fall below the county’s annual living wage of $29,827, or $14.34 an hour for a full-time worker without insurance.

No category of worker had a mean salary equivalent to the current minimum wage, equivalent to $18,200 a year, however the estimated 140 fast food workers in the metropolitan area earned a mean annual wage of $18,680, still $400 less per year than the national average for the industry.

In Tompkins County, more than 100 businesses employing more than 3,000 people have agreed to comply with the county’s assessed living wage.

Follow Nick Reynolds on Twitter @IJCityWatch.