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The purpose of this paper is to provide background on the US living wage movement, with particular attention to recent victories, and also the ways in which the US movement differs from living wage movements in other countries. It begins with some technical distinctions of terms, then analyzes the campaigns and movement for higher wages, and considers some of the challenges the campaigns have faced. It will conclude with some discussion about the future of the movement.

This is a general review of living wage campaigns in the USA. This is based on a review of existing literature and the author’s own prior research and participant observation.

The author argues that the initial living wage movement that began in the early 1990s was limited in scope but successful in building coalitions and political power to launch a much more expansive movement to raise wages in 2012.

This paper is a general summary of the last 20 years of living wage campaigns. It does not include new research.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse justifications for, and accounting’s role in, arguments for and against the living wage.

A systematic content analysis of arguments made for and against the living wage in a range of secondary data sources is conducted. Boltanski and Thévenot’s typology of “orders of worth” provides the framework for analysis.

Arguments for a living wage are found to draw on a range of orders of worth. These arguments hold that while market signals have a valid role in informing wage decisions, such decisions should also take into account the civic order’s emphasis on collective outcomes, the industrial order’s emphasis on long-term organisational performance, and an emphasis on the inherent dignity of the human worker drawn from the domestic and inspired orders. Business arguments against a living wage hold that the current weight given to the tests and objectives of the market order is optimal and that a living wage would undermine firm competitiveness and, ultimately, collective well-being. Justifications of existing low-wage practices are shown to be reflected in, and naturalised by, accounting discourses and practices.

This study contributes to the emergent literature on the relationship between accounting and inequality. It elucidates accounting’s role in supporting the market order of worth and thus the stabilisation and perpetuation of income inequalities. Its analysis of the orders of worth invoked by those calling for a living wage contribute to the task of imagining and constructing an alternative, more equitable, accounting discourse and practice.

The study maps workplace stakeholders’ perceptions of living wage (LW) impacts in New Zealand. Empirical findings inform an inaugural model of LW impacts and contingent factors at individual, organisation, sector/industry and national levels.

Data from a national employee survey, semi-structured interviews with business sector representatives, and staff in two LW organisation cases were subjected to thematic content analysis.

Informants emphasised anticipated LW impacts amid complex workplace and regulatory dynamics. Employers/managers stressed its cost effects. However, employees, human resource (HR) advocates and other LW proponents highlighted employee “investment” impacts that improve worker productivity and societal circumstances.

This study highlights the need for further context-sensitive LW analysis. An initial model of LW impacts provides a framework for comparative and longitudinal work in other national contexts.

The proposed model categorises perceived LW effects and can inform policy development. Findings also stress a need for cross-agency initiatives to address LW concerns, including a key role for HR.

The findings highlight perceptions of a LW impacting within and beyond the workplace. Whilst higher-quality management is seen to encourage better-informed decisions about “going living wage”, a LW's positive socio-economic impacts require multi-lateral initiatives, suggesting that those initiatives are is part of wider obligations for policy makers to encourage decent living standards.

This study provides a much-needed and inaugural focus on the intertwined workplace and wider impacts of a LW, extending extant econometric analyses. The paper also synthesizes different data sources to develop an inaugural, context-sensitive model of perceived LW effects.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how the voluntary living wage (LW) in the UK is set. It examines how this calculation relates to contemporary approaches to setting wage floors, both in relation to their goal of supporting adequate living standards and in relation to the place of wage floors in the labour mark.

The paper examines how compulsory and voluntary wage floors are being determined, in the UK and in particular the role of public consensus in contributing to the calculation and adoption of a LW. It then reflects on the future sustainability of a system of wage floors in which the concept of the LW plays a significant role.

The central finding is that widespread support for wages delivering socially acceptable minimum living standards has transformed the context in which low pay is being addressed in the UK. The LW idea has stimulated more decisive efforts to do so; however, if a compulsory version of a LW were to reach a level shown to be harming jobs, this could seriously undermine such efforts. Moreover, the extent to which adequate wages are compatible with high employment levels can also be influenced by state support for households, especially tax credits and Universal Credit.

The paper clarifies how the setting of the UK LW contributes to objectives related both to living standards and to labour markets, and critically addresses some key issues raised.

Living wage campaigns are popular responses to counter increasing inequality in advanced industrial countries. The purpose of this paper is to examine how voluntary living wage employer certification engages business in multi-sectoral coalitions to reduce poverty.

The authors utilize qualitative interviews with 30 members of a living wage employer certification program in Vancouver, Canada as a case study to explore campaign participation by the business community and business case outcomes.

Certifying voluntary living wage employers engaged business community members as partners and advocates in a living wage campaign. Certified living wage employers fulfilled business case projections for worker compensation fairness, human resource improvements and corporate branding advantages.

The study focussed on the early stages of a living wage employer certification program. As the number of living wage certification programs and ordinances grows, future research would benefit from examining how different social policy contexts in other Canadian and international regions affects whether these two avenues support one another or one avenue becomes favoured.

Most studies of living wage campaigns have not dealt with how voluntary employer certification programs affect campaign participation and outcomes. The approach the authors adopt in the case takes into account the role of voluntary employer certification programs on campaign participation by the business community and business case outcomes. The study findings are of value to businesses, activists and policy analysts, who engage in or study corporate social responsibility initiatives to facilitate the creation of “good jobs” that provide family sustaining wages and benefits, particularly to lower-tier workers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the value that UK trade unions now place on the living wage.

The author is the TUC’s Pay Policy Officer and examines the issue from a practitioner’s perspective.

The living wage now has a well-established place within the hierarchy of pay demands adopted by UK trade unions. This continues a tradition of unions supporting norms and regulations as an adjunct to collective bargaining. However, support had to be achieved through a process of negotiation with the broader UK living wage campaign.

The paper concludes that there are good prospects for the living wage, and thus for the continued trade union support.

The living wage standard is seen as having a strong moral basis, which often helps to win agreement with good employers. This results in a steady stream of workers out of in-work poverty. The credit for such pay increases is often shared between employers and trade unions.

The paper is written by a practitioner with inside knowledge and experience of the entire course of the living wage campaign in the UK and how it has been adopted and integrated by trade unions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore reactions to the introduction by the UK Government of the National Living Wage (NLW) in the UK hospitality sector and consider implications for the status of employee relations.

In-depth interviews were conducted with senior industry representatives of the hospitality sector in the UK.

Concerns surrounding an increase in the wage bill, in maintaining pay differentials and in shifting employment to youth were confirmed. Managers expressed ambiguity in face of the legislation, offering agreement at a personal level with the rationale underpinning the NLW, but also expressing concern about impacts on their businesses.

This exploratory study offers the basis for further research in understanding the foundation of employee relations in hospitality.

A reconsideration of the nature of the employment relationship is key at a time of growing concerns about the business-society relationship.

Uses reactions to the UK Government’s stipulation of a NLW to explore the basis of employee relations in the hospitality sector. This is timely where work to date in hospitality has largely focussed on symptoms but not causes of poor working conditions.

The social indicator approach represents an extension and a change in direction of traditional methods of statistical assessment. Professor Raymond Bauer, a pioneer of the social indicator movement, has described them as:

The proliferation of homelessness and housing precariousness, along with a dramatic growth in food banks, are two signs that while parts of the UK economy may be recovering from the 2008 financial crisis and recession, the same cannot be said for the living conditions of much of the poor and working class population. Much of the media discussion has centered on the ways in which these social ills have been caused by government policy, particularly cuts to social and welfare services introduced under the banner of “austerity.” I argue in this paper, however, that a narrow focus on austerity risks obscuring some of the longer-term structural transformations that have taken place under neoliberal capitalism, namely: (1) financialization and (2) the privatization of social reproduction. Situating these two trends within a longer history of capitalism, I argue, allows us to understand the contemporary housing and food crises as specific (and highly gendered) manifestations of a more fundamental contradiction between capital accumulation and progressive and sustainable forms of social reproduction. Doing so further helps to locate the dramatic proliferation of household debt, which has been supported by both processes, as both cause and consequence of the crisis in social reproduction faced by many UK households.

Catholic social teaching has held that a just wage is one that provides adequate support for a family in which the husband is employed and the wife stays at home to care for the family. In the United States today, both parents are typically employed. Does each parent have a right to a wage sufficient to support a family? In societies in which couples make the choice that both shall be employed, justice does not require that the wage rate paid to any one worker be sufficient to support a family.