Test Your Knowledge: What is a Liveable Wage?

W hat is a livable wage? To some, it may sound like another one of those ‘buzzwords’ that have been popularized by Gen Z (in what the older folks may refer to as their youthful frenzy). Despite any potential discomfort around using this term due to its apparent newness, though, we’d like to assure you that it’s not only pretty straightforward, but it’s also not new at all!

Come, let’s take a look at the origins and definition(s) of a livable wage, along with unpacking the need for its adoption – everywhere in the world.

Origins

It hasn’t been just fifty, hundred, or even five hundred years since ‘livable wage’ was theorized and conceptualized by humans; this concept goes way back –  to as early as 400-350 BCE. Ancient Greek Philosophers namely Plato and Aristotle might have been the first to propose and write about a livable wage is every person’s right (albeit without coining this term).

They both highlighted how incomes should be adequate to provide for all of the people’s needs, especially when that may contribute to the communal good.

Much later, medieval scholars like Thomas Aquinas furthered the concept by advocating for a ‘just’ (fair) wage. According to this concept, prices of necessities that were beyond the affordability of common people would be labeled as ‘unjust’.

The father of Modern Economics, Adam Smith, was also a proponent of a livable wage. As per his writings in Wealth of Nations (i.e., his magnum opus), without the labor of the working classes being duly remunerated (beyond just subsistence, that is), society can never flourish. Thus, the provision of a livable wage, for him, was a contributor to the communal good.

And that is what the proponents of a livable wage argue today as well.

What Do We Mean By A Livable Wage?

A livable wage, also known as a living wage, represents the belief that the minimum wage can be insufficient to meet the needs of a worker for a decent lifestyle. Along with receiving wages that are not exploitative of labor, the concept of a livable wage also centers on key indicators of a healthy and prosperous life which extend to public welfare services being accessible.

As the name suggests, a livable wage is a wage that allows a person to comfortably live, accounting for amenities including – but not limited to – water, food, education, housing, healthcare, clothing, transportation, and “other essential needs including provision for unexpected events”.

Because of starkly different living conditions from place to place and structural inequalities that may be unique to certain regions, the definition of a livable wage isn’t – and cannot be – set in stone as a global metric of evaluating people’s living standards. What is common about the demands for a livable wage in distinct parts of the world, though, is that they attempt to address the rampant exploitation of workers (especially the ones who are paid the lowest).

Why Is It Needed?

All around the world, exploitative working conditions that rob people off of their humanity have been observed throughout the eras. With the advent of capitalism and neoliberalism, this exploitation has exacerbated, particularly with workers in low-income, previously colonized countries being hired by international multi-million dollar businesses for peanuts in exchange.

Workers faced with multitudes of oppression on grounds of their race, gender, sex, class, religion, etc. are more vulnerable to such exploitation. On top of that, worker unionization is banned in some places, while corporations and/or governments may also heavily sanction workers for trying to agitate against their subhuman working conditions.

The fact that these injustices prevail despite the existence of the minimum wage being formally acknowledged in written law by many governments around the world shows that there’s a need to push for something greater, which can translate into more tangible improvements in the lives of the people most deprived of basic amenities. Child labor, trafficking, bonded labor, unpaid overtime work, preventable illnesses and diseases, social isolation, and in access to basic facilities like safe shelter, food, education, housing and nutrition are vices that have been birthed by the lack of adequate worker protection rights – which is exactly what livable wage advocates are trying to overcome.

What Are The Steps Ahead?

Pushing governments and businesses to radically transform the way they value human life and the labor derived from it is the need of the hour. Through greater dialogue on this issue, we are facilitating the move towards the demand for a livable wage gaining the global significance it should have.

Additionally, initiatives like the Ankler Methodology are furthering the cause by translating theory into groundwork. So, the first question to answer before thinking of such initiatives would be: what is a livable wage? Well, now you know!

In case ensuring the provision of a livable wage in the spirit of fighting for what’s right doesn’t fancy the interests of exploitative businesses, they might benefit from the realization that happy workers are more productive workers and will, thus, increase the profitability of the business owners themselves!