How unfortunate that The Sun has characterized Baltimore as a lab animal rather than a leader, casually dismissing City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke's efforts to raise the city's minimum wage gradually over the next six years ("The $15 mistake," July 26). In a city where a quarter of residents languish below federal poverty guidelines and a third of all kids live in poor households, we'd hope for a higher level of analysis from the paper of record than a regurgitation of century-old unproven arguments to maintain a status quo that continues to exacerbate the untenable gap between rich and poor.
Because the federal wage floor (currently $7.25 an hour) hasn't kept pace with the cost of living over the last 50 years, 29 states and two dozen localities have acted independently in the absence of Congressional leadership. As The Sun notes, Maryland is raising its minimum wage incrementally to $10.10 an hour by 2018. Yet, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a worker earning the prevailing minimum wage still can't afford a modest two-bedroom apartment for her family anywhere in the country.
Fifteen years ago, amid the expected chorus of doomsday predictions, Health Care for the Homeless established a wage floor tied to the local cost of housing in an effort to ensure that our own staff were not at risk of the homelessness we sought to prevent and end.
Today, no one at Health Care for the Homeless earns less than $16.65 an hour, slightly more than what the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development says a person needs to earn to afford an efficiency apartment at fair market rent in Baltimore City. And our agency is stronger than ever. Staff morale and retention increased. Hardship loans from retirement accounts declined. Our budget, staff size and the range of services we provide have grown each and every year. Unfortunately, the number of people in need of our services has also grown as stagnant incomes have not kept pace with the rising cost of living.
The Sun wrings its hands and says that those trying to pass a $15 wage floor by 2022 are making Baltimore a guinea pig. We raise our hands to applaud elected officials brave enough to make Baltimore a regional and national leader.
Kevin Lindamood and Adam Schneider, Baltimore
The writers are, respectively, president and CEO and director of community relations of Health Care for the Homeless.