A Living Wage
What exactly is a “living” wage?
Policymakers have often turned to the Federal Poverty Line (FPL) – an annual income threshold based on family size and inflation – as a means of describing a “living” wage. In 2024, for a family of four people, this number sat at an annual household income of $31,200.
But this number only tells part of the story. There are numerous family needs, as well as factors such as location, that are not incorporated with sufficient granularity into the calculation of the FPL. When you boil it down, a “living” wage should be more than merely what it takes to stay at, or just right above, the poverty line. It should allow people to live their lives in a comfortable and dignified manner.
As part of their Living Wage Calculator, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have defined a living wage as what one full-time worker must earn on an hourly basis to help cover the cost of their family’s minimum basic needs while remaining
self-sufficient. MIT’s calculation of a living wage is location dependent – what one family needs in the suburbs of Cleveland, for instance, is much different than a family living in downtown Los Angeles – and takes into account eight basic needs: childcare, food, healthcare, housing, broadband, transportation, civic engagement, and other necessities.
Let’s look at an example of a family of four living in Los Angeles County, California, where both parents are working full time. Using MIT’s living wage calculator, each parent would need to earn $33.34 per hour to maintain a living wage. For the same scenario, the poverty wage sits at $7.50 per hour for each parent. The minimum wage in Los Angeles county, meanwhile, sits at $16 per hour – just under half of what MIT calculates each worker would need for a livable wage. The stark difference between what a living wage actually looks like and what the regulations of our country require is shocking.
Partially as a result of our societal misunderstandings of what should constitute a living wage, Fast Fashion has completely avoided ethical wage practices over the past several decades. By exploiting cheap labor in other countries along their supply chains, Fast Fashion brands have sought to drive down the cost of making their garments as a means of remaining competitive with consumers.
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, in Bangladesh, the nearly 600,000 people making clothing for H&M earned an average of $119 a month in the first half of 2023. This was well below the $194 living-wage figure listed for the suburbs of the capital city of Dhaka, a number which, in itself, is already a conservatively low estimate of a family’s necessary funds.
H&M is far from the only example of this practice. Boohoo – a British online fast-fashion retailer selling primarily to late teens and twenty somethings – has come under fire after a BBC investigation revealed some of their suppliers paid workers around $4 per hour. While Boohoo promised to overhaul its supply chain practices, according to later reports, they began placing “Made in the UK” labels on overseas-made goods to disguise their origins and avert future backlash. Shein, Zara, Nike, Adidas, Fashion Nova, Uniqlo – all these brands, and many others, have been criticized for similarly unethical wage practices.
Along with ignoring these blatantly-inhuman wages, many major fashion brands turn a blind eye to the extremely dangerous conditions for garment workers across their supply chains. In April 2013, for instance, the Rana Plaza factory complex in Dhaka collapsed, causing the deaths of 1132 garment workers and injuring many more. Despite cracks being seen in the walls and pillars of the Plaza the day before, the building was declared safe by a local engineer, and the garment workers were forced to come back to work. The compensation case filed in relation to this tragedy has yet to be resolved.
It may be hard to envision how we as individuals can combat such a grotesque and widespread issue. But, as with most things, we have a choice when it comes to what we buy and which companies we buy from. We can choose to buy from fashion brands that make living wages a priority in their business models, and in doing so, we can share our perspective through our purchases.
We can also support groups that are combating these enormous injustices on a grander scale. Organizations like the Fair Wear Foundation – an independent non-profit founded in 1999 – are doing great work to advocate for wage improvements around the world. We at Doo Dah Apparel are doing our part as well by partnering with brands that make a living wage part of their identities.
While these actions may seem insignificant when compared to the scale of the problem, it’s all about doing what you can, when you can. If each of us does that, we can make the world a better place.
Alec Matulka
Doo Dah Apparel
