MoneyMattersLeftBehindinKY.pdf

Media Release

Contact: Abby Hughes, Policy Analyst

Debra Miller, Executive Director

(502) 875-4865

Kentucky Youth Advocates Release Living Wages for Louisville and Lexington Kentucky

Today in Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky Youth Advocates released a report, Left Behind in Kentucky: An Examination of a Living Wage for Louisville & Lexington, Kentucky, outlining the income needed for a working family to secure its basic needs in urban Kentucky. The report offers three budget scenarios detailing how much money a family of three—a single mother with two young children—would need to meets its basic needs in the state’s two largest cities.

The report calculates a living wage for a hypothetical family of three in Louisville and Lexington, including the following necessities in the family’s budget: food, housing, utilities, health care, transportation, child care, housekeeping and personal care items, clothing, and taxes. The only variation among KYA’s findings relates to health care costs—whether the family receives coverage from the parent’s employer and the KCHIP program or has to pay for all or some of their coverage. A living wage for Louisville ranges from $11.92 to $15.48 per hour. In Lexington, the living wage varies from $11.39 to $15.10. Significantly, minimum wage falls far short of providing a living wage for families.

Debra Miller, Executive Director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, discussed how many Kentuckians are being left behind in these times of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity. Nearly one in three Kentucky workers earn wages so low that working full time, year round does not enable them to lift a family of four out of poverty. Miller notes, “Regardless of how living wage is defined, what’s significant is that all definitions highlight the gap between the wages of many Kentucky workers and their basic needs. The minimum wage doesn’t even come close to providing the necessary resources for working folks to support their families.”

Jeff Freyman, Ph.D., Co- Chair of the Central Kentucky Council for Peace and Justice, commented, “The report provides an invaluable contribution to the current discussions in Louisville and Lexington concerning the need for a living wage ordinance. Its data conclusively demonstrate that present state and national minimum wage laws fall far short of ensuring a liveable income for working families in our two communities. Based on meticulous research into the basic human needs of people in the Commonwealth, the study shows that we, in Kentucky and indeed in America, have a long way to go in order to guarantee our fellow citizens a decent standard of living.”

Living Wage

Louisville Single Mother w/ Two Children Lexington

Scenarios:

A: Employer Provided Health Insurance for Mother; KCHIP for Children.

B: Mother Pays Health Insurance for Self; KCHIP for Children

C: Mother Pays Health Insurance for Self and Children.

Throughout the country many cities are recognizing that low wages preclude families from meeting their basic needs. KYA’s findings uniformly reveal that families require substantially more income than estimated under federal poverty guidelines. Chris Sanders, Kentucky AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer, remarks, “People living at the poverty line level are struggling to survive. Living wages are needed for the really, really poor and the working poor. Many people seem to associate living above the poverty line with middle class status and that association is just crazy.”

To view the full report of Left Behind in Kentucky: An Examination of a Living Wage for Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky visit KYA’s web site at www.kyyouth.org and follow the KYA News or KYA Publications Links.

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