Wage Against the Machine | Vicki Meath and Jen Hampton of Just Economics

If you’re not earning at least $22.10 an hour, you can’t afford to live in Asheville. That’s according to Just Economics of WNC, which last month updated its living wage rate for Buncombe County. It climbed $2 an hour in less than a year.

My guests today are Vicki Meath, Director of Just Economics, and Jen Hampton, the organization’s Housing and Wages Organizer. Just Economics has a living wage certification program that only a fraction of local employers participate in. We talk about the struggles facing Asheville's workers amid increased cost of living and tiny wage increases. We also talk about their advocacy for affordable housing, the importance of supporting businesses that do pay a living wage and signs of hope on the horizon.

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Transcript

Matt Peiken: Vicki, you've been with the organization now 14 years. Tell me about the scope of your work back in 2010 and how that has evolved in the 14 years you've been with Just Economics.

Vicki Meath: Yeah, so in 2010, we were primarily just a living wage organization. We had the Living Wage Certification Program, which we still have. And we had this program called Voices for Economic Justice, which we still have. And we did some public policy work around living wages. Since that time, our work has not changed. I would say it's evolved. So it's evolved to include more issues because our mission is to educate, advocate, and organize for a more just and sustainable local economy that works for all in Western North Carolina.

Matt Peiken: So tell me, how have these issues that you've taken on in that time, how do they work in and revolve around that issue? 

Vicki Meath: Yeah. So again, our mission doesn't say anything about living wages, but our organization really got started with a living wage campaign because we look at wages as a cornerstone for building a more just and sustainable local economy.

Since then, we've taken on the issues of better transit and affordable housing. And those issues Have become part of our work because the work comes from our members from the people that we work with, and we worked with some people back in 2012 that started talking about transit as an economic justice issue and changes to the bus system that had affected their economic opportunity and economic security.

And so when we were adding transit as a primary issue of focus for Just Economics, we also said we can't add transit without adding housing. Our organization really got started because housing is very inconsistent with wages. We have big city housing costs, but we don't have big city wages. 

Matt Peiken: Yeah, let's go back to the roots of this. I understand that the genesis of Just Economics was around 2000 and that it started with a campaign to get higher wages for city and county workers. I thought that was kind of interesting that even back then, I didn't get the sense before looking into this, that the cost of living in Asheville, even back then, was such a hot topic.

Vicki Meath: Yeah, absolutely. The campaign that founded our organization was based on a movement that was happening across the country where people were asking cities and counties to make sure that their workers were making a living wage. And like you mentioned, our organization started back in 2000, but really didn't take root until 2006. It was dormant for a little while. 2006 2007. And at that time, even back then, housing was a crisis in our community and wages were not consistent with the cost of housing. And so back from the Beginnings of our living wage formula, our living wage, developing our living wage, it was based on the cost of housing.

There are different ways to determine a living wage. We started off based on the cost of housing because even at that time, 2006 2007, We saw that wages were inconsistent with housing. 

Matt Peiken: What else comes into that formula now beyond just the cost of housing? What other elements play into determining what a living wage in the city is?

Vicki Meath: Yeah. So like I mentioned, there are different ways to determine a living wage. The method that we use is based on the cost of housing and looking at housing as what you need to prove to your landlord that you could make three times the rent. Okay so our living wage, the numbers that go into that formula are solely housing numbers, but they are in a consistent range with other organizations that determine a living wage, like MIT, like the National Living Wage Program that we work with, Living Wage For Us, it's a very consistent range. They use different formulas, but we come up with a similar range of numbers.

Matt Peiken: And what was the living wage when The organization first started? What was determined to be a living wage back in 2000, or if you can't speak to that What was it in 2010?

Vicki Meath: We didn't determine the living wage in 2000. We initiated in 2000, kind of went dormant for a while And then it took root really in 2006 2007, I can't remember the exact number. When I started in 2010, the living wage rate was $11.35 or $9.85 if you provided employer provided health insurance. 

Matt Peiken: So from what I'm gathering, the living wage or the cost of living here has doubled. Pretty much in the time since you started. Jen, talk about your work on the ground.

You've only been with Just Economics for 10 months, but your work with the organization goes back a few years with organizing. Talk about the scope of your work and what you do. 

Jen Hampton: The scope of my work now is I organize people around affordable housing issues, people who are other advocates in the community to support each other's work in advocating for housing issues, basically around affordability and availability of housing.

And then I also am working with tenants to address things like living conditions. Back before I started working with Just Economics, I was solely organizing workers around things that they need, like living wages and paid time off and fair scheduling. But I feel really fortunate now because there is, like Vicki's saying, such a correlation between the cost of housing and wages that we make, and those two issues are really inextricably linked.

Matt Peiken: I would think one of the main challenges is just employers raising wages. You have a certification program for employers that you tout whether they do Provide a living wage and that's a formal certification process that you go through, right? I thought in some ways this number seemed low to me now maybe provide some context, that since 2008, Your organization has certified 400 plus.

I don't know what that means. 450, 490, 401, but you have certified more than 400 local employers as Providing a living wage. Give us some context for that. How many employers are in this region? That seems like a small percentage. 

Vicki Meath: It is a small percentage, but I want to say it's a small but mighty percentage and this is exactly why we're urging consumers to support those types of employers that want to support the type of community we want to live in, one where people can meet their basic needs and be able to participate in our local economy.

I'm not sure on the total number. I think it's around 7, 000 employers in Buncombe County. And having a couple hundred certified is great. It's certainly not where we want to be, but it's a step towards raising the wage floor. And I also just want to give another shout out and kudos to those employers that are working to raise their wages To keep up with the living wage and encourage folks to support those employers. 

Matt Peiken: You're anticipating my next question that you just recently Raised the living wage to $22.10 for ashville And that I guess as part of that, the pledged rate Is, and I want you to explain this, the pledged rate is 19 an hour with a commitment to raise That wage three percent plus inflation.

What is a pledged rate that employers say we promise to get to a living wage? 

Vicki Meath: Our living wage rate, we've used this formula that's based on the cost of housing. We used a 3 percent or greater trigger for a number of years, and it was going up about every other year.

And then, since 2019, Our living wage rate started shooting up rather drastically, and if we look at what the cost of housing has done in the last five, six years, this is why, right? Because the cost of housing, which was a crisis back in 2008 when we started the living wage program and 2007, 2006 when we started, but became an even bigger crisis.

And now it's a crisis all across the country and certainly an extreme crisis here. But since 2019, our living wage rate has risen drastically over the past five, six years each year. 

Matt Peiken: And that's directly tied to how the cost of housing. And so when you certify an employer, let's say you certify an employer back in 2018, That doesn't mean they retain their certification, right? How does that work? 

Vicki Meath: They have to go through a recertification process. So right now, employers that are new to our program, they're certifying for the first time, they need to certify at either $22.10 an hour or at the pledge rate of 19 an hour with this commitment.

And I can get back to that in just a minute. But employers that have been previously certified, we certify employers for two years. So everyone that certified at the leading living wage rate last year of $20.10, they don't have to recertify until next year. We let them know what that rate is. So it's a target. It's something to shoot towards, but they don't have to certify till next year. And employers that were previously certified. Or re-certified in 2022 or earlier they will start a re-certification process and that recertification process will start in March. So those that certified in 2018, 2016, 2010, 2008 when we started the program, they're recertifying at least every two years. Let me just name that our living wage rate in 2019 was $13.65 an hour. And right now it is $22.10 an hour. 

Matt Peiken: Wait, in 2019 it was? So that's only five years ago. 

Vicki Meath: Exactly. Wow. And this is based on The exponential rise in housing costs that is very drastic. We have the highest fair market rent in the state, but we do not have wages that compete with places like Charlotte and Raleigh. I just like ask folks to be gentle with our employers as they're recertifying because we don't expect employers to change their wages overnight.

We don't expect the announcement to be made the first week of January and the second week of January expect all of our employers that were previously certified to be up to that new rate.

Matt Peiken: I want to bring a little context in this. I recently interviewed the interim chief of the Asheville Police and he said only five of his officers five are homeowners in Asheville. So that to me, and solely tied to cost of living, That just economics was born out of an effort to get city and county employees higher wages. The police are at the heart of city employees and they can't afford to live in this city.

So you're fighting, Jen, to help keep rates affordable. Rental rates. What is the main challenge there? These are private landlords, property owners. They probably want to make the most they can possibly make in the marketplace.

They see rates all around them going up. They have to go with that tide, or maybe they don't have to. They think they have to. Tell me, what are you hearing? What are the challenges in trying to control the cost of housing? 

Jen Hampton: Oof, that's a big one. Trying to control the cost of housing, that's really difficult in a state like ours because we don't have very many legal protections for people who live in private housing. Landlords can charge whatever they want. There's no cap on the percentage that they can raise the rent. I know one person who was paying $850 in 2020 and for the exact same apartment with no updates is now paying $1500.

Matt Peiken: Wow. So almost twice the rent. Also, I've wondered on a development level, when the city and county have land that they are working with developers on, why are there not more restrictions in terms of what can be charged for rent.

Have you talked with local leaders about trying to enact, at least where there are city and county land involved in development, that they can put conditions on? Or is that illegal? Does the state of North Carolina prohibit municipalities from? 

Jen Hampton: Yeah there's a few answers to that. There is no mechanism for the city or county to put caps on rents in North Carolina. That would have to be a statewide initiative. However, on the city and county owned land, our affordable housing strategy team at Just Economics, that's our focus. That is our main focus. We're fairly new to that being our focus. And I'm fairly new to this work. Only been here for 10 months, but My read of it is that there hasn't been a whole lot of advocacy, really, for making sure that the community gets the most benefit out of land that's being developed on county and city-owned land.

Matt Peiken: That to me seems ridiculous. It's ridiculous on the face of it. We have teams of people here in the city and county whose job it is about affordable housing and working with developers to create tax incentives to cap rates and have a certain percentage of units available for a certain percent below the median income, for instance.

Are these things just not happening even though we have well meaning people in place? What's happening or not happening? 

Jen Hampton: I was just going to say I don't think that it's not happening. I think that maybe there's been A misunderstanding of what true affordability is and how much that we can Demand because the city and county absolutely can Require that we have a certain percentage of homes available at a certain Percentage of area median income, and I feel like there is being progress made. In city and county government There is an awareness of this crisis that's happening in the community and in the community, it's hard to miss. Everybody is talking about this lack of affordable housing. I believe that there is going to be forward momentum on this and that there is a better understanding of what true affordability is and what else goes into the affordability aspect, like transit and accessibility to amenities that people need.

Matt Peiken: When we're talking about private developers though, what arguments are you making? What sentiments are you talking about with developers or if not developers, landlords, property owners, to try to keep in mind livability, or is that a conversation that's just a non starter with developers? Am I being naive here? 

Vicki Meath: So Jen said earlier, we have few levers in terms of policies that we can enact in the state of North Carolina that both protect renters and protect affordability. We don't have the same ability to do things like rent control. 

Matt Peiken: Can I pause you on that for one second? Are there lots of other states that do have these levers? 

Vicki Meath: There are other states that have these levers. New York State, for example, everybody knows that New York City is a high place for the cost of housing, but rent control has protected a lot of people to be able to make sure that they can afford to stay in the place that they rent.

So something like what the story that Jen mentioned With someone's rent being at $850 and then going up to $1500 over a year or two does not happen in New York City because of rent control. Another public policy that other states have is something called mandatory inclusionary zoning.

That means that any private landlord or developer that is developing a property would have to be required to make a certain percentage of their properties affordable to people at a certain percentage of area median income. Right now, we don't have the legal authority to do those things, but what we do have the legal authority to do is to put restrictions on any time a developer is asking something from the city or county. So if they're asking for some type of funds, they're asking for a tax break, for example, to say we want a tax break from you. And the city says, okay, we'll give you a tax break if you make 20 percent of your units available to people at 80 percent area median income or something like that.

And then certainly we have these restrictions that they can put on city or county owned land because they can deed restrict those. So if they own the land, they can dictate how that land is developed and what they want in there that feels feasible to a developer.

But what I did want to mention is that we've been using these numbers, right, 80 percent area median income. 80 percent area median income, even for a single person, is higher than our living wage rate. So while many employers are struggling to just meet our living wage rate of $22.10, the area median income, what we're subsidizing developers to develop housing that's affordable to people making 80 percent area median income, It's not really touching a lot of the working class in our community.

It's not touching even the lowest paid workers at the city. So this is why we see not even owning a home, but renting in this community, what sometimes the city is subsidizing. People that work for the city can't even afford the subsidize. 

Matt Peiken: So why is it at 80%? Why is it not say 60%?

Vicki Meath: That's some of the work that advocates like Just Economics and other advocates in our community are working to do is lower that threshold.

Matt Peiken: Where's the pressure point to keep it at 80? If you're speaking to this and pointing out what you just pointed out to me, why would there be pushback on keeping it at 80?

I would think, Oh, we just didn't think about that. Thank you for bringing these numbers to our attention. Let's lower that threshold to X percentage. What's the resistance? 

Vicki Meath: What we have to understand is that the city and county staff are constantly working with developers and developers are saying like, This is all we can do. This is all that's feasible. And of course they're going to say that because that's their bottom line. And those are the voices that are in the ears of city staff. And so we as advocates have to be in the ears of city council and also in the ears of city staff. And we have to be saying like, look, we know what you're subsidizing at 80 percent is not affordable to the working class people of this community. And so you need to lower that threshold and we need to find new ways. And I will say that the city is currently going through a revision of their affordable housing program.

And in fact, the city is currently seeking input on their affordable housing program that's newly developed where they're taking a look at these things, because again, the economy, the housing market has changed so drastically since 2019, the economy has changed so drastically due to the pandemic that the city and county are working to keep up with that. So we as advocates and we as community members that are impacted. By the lack of affordable housing, we have to also be raising our voices.

And one way to raise that currently is to be involved in the city of Asheville's affordable housing program kind of reboots. 

Matt Peiken: It sounds like in some ways, it's a lobbying battle that you have developers lobbying to keep things a certain way. This is all we can handle. And you're trying to speak up for the people who don't have a voice at city council. And so getting back to the other side of this, which is wages, I can imagine employers saying, this is all we can handle. We cannot pay more. And in fact, there have been employers in this town who have tried to pay more at a certain point and had to retreat.

I think of the former restaurant, blue dream curry. At one point they made a big public proclamation about this. We are going to pay a living wage. This is back in like 2018, I think it was 2017, somewhere around there.

And they were going to pay 17 something an hour at that time. And they kept that up for maybe a year, two years. And they said publicly, we can't do it because our customers don't want to pay higher prices. Even if we eliminate tipping, we're building that in to the cost of the meal and it just wasn't translating to the public.

That's just one anecdote That's one story of a company of a business that tried a living wage and for them. It didn't work. 

Vicki Meath: Well, let's be clear though that Blue dream curry was living wage certified the entire time they were in business and there's probably multiple reasons why Blue Dream Curry is out of business. We loved that place as well. I loved it personally. And loved the owners of that business. But I would say that we understand again, we know that these rising labor costs are hard for a lot of employers and not all industries are created equal, not all employers are created equal, and a lot of our small local businesses are in competition with multinational corporations that have corporate buying power, corporate marketing power, have reserves of money to deal with rising labor costs. 

Matt Peiken: And some of these multinational companies, they can take on losses in certain areas for the sake of competition to bury competition.

Vicki Meath: That's why our living wage certification program is voluntary and it's supportive. It's not punitive. And that's why we are encouraging consumers and everyone listening to support those employers because it's a voluntary program. We know that there's a lot of employers that are struggling to make ends meet, stay competitive and stay solvent. But there are a lot of workers that are struggling to figure out where are they going to live? How are they going to afford to live in this community when their rents are going up? So there's a struggle on both sides.

And while continually like working to lower the cost of housing and raise labor costs, we also understand all of the players in this that are struggling and that we want to support on their pathway to paying a living wage. 

Matt Peiken: You know, I guess this kind of speaks to getting back to the consumer. Cause really on both sides of this is what will consumers do to support this business that wants to pay a higher wage or fighting to try to push back against these higher rents that are happening. When you said there were about 400 something businesses out of 7, 000, my terrible math puts that at somewhere 5 to 6 percent of businesses, do you get a sense of nationally or statewide, can you give us some context, are other cities, even tourist based cities like Charleston and others, are they seeing a percentage of businesses that pay a living wage much higher than Asheville?

Vicki Meath: So there's only a few voluntary living wage certification programs in the country, and we actually have the largest, so there may be Lots of other employers that are paying a living wage that are not part of our program. And you know what, I don't know where to come up with that data of what the wage floor is. But we also have to remember that in North Carolina, our minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour and has been since 2009. We don't have the same legal ability that they do in other states to raise it per municipality or per county. And there's a city in Washington state that their minimum wage in their city is above 20 an hour. So when you look at our living wage rate at $22.10 compared to $7.25 an hour, we're three times the minimum wage. But when you look at other places that have a higher minimum wage, like they do in Seattle, San Francisco, And many states around the country, there's other states where the difference between what the minimum wage is and the living wage is not as stark.

Matt Peiken: I think that speaks more to this legislature than it talks about what actual wages are in this state? All you have to do is drive along Merrimon Avenue and see the signs at Wendy's and McDonald's saying, we'll start you at 16 an hour.

I would think that the minimum wage is more just legalese than, are there actual businesses that are paying that amount? 

Vicki Meath: I think when you look across the state, first of all we're in Asheville and the market is different here. And we've also had a period since the pandemic began where there's been this quote unquote labor shortage. That has actually been good for worker organizing, and Jen, I think, could speak to what's happened with our workers assembly and some of the worker power things that have been happening over the past several years. But if you go into our rural communities, we do see people that are still making 8, 9 an hour, maybe not $7.25, but we do see people that are struggling below 10 an hour still. 

Matt Peiken: Jen, you've worked in the restaurant industry a long time and We still have servers, hostesses, hosts, bartenders. Are more of them moving out but then commuting into Asheville? Are you seeing that happen and having to move further and further out but still come here to work? 

Jen Hampton: Yeah, absolutely, that's the case. More than not, I think, people are living outside of the community in Candler, in Swannanoa, in Leicester, way down in Fletcher, people are having to live far away and commute 20 30 minutes to work.

And if they're not, then they're having to share a house with four or five other people. Just to be able to live close to where they work and people are starting to get fed up with that and I do hear people saying if I can't afford to live here, then I don't want to work here, so we're losing, in my opinion, because of the cost of housing has risen so drastically that people need to make so much more money just to survive here, we're losing a lot of people who made our community what attracted tourists in the first place. People came here because the people who worked in these unique restaurants and bars and all the cool things that we have. It's the people, the artistic, creative, unique, wonderful, weird people of Asheville that the tourists were coming here for.

And I feel like what I'm seeing on the ground is we're losing some of that, and I'm happy to see places like Canton and Marshall even, is turning into the cool hip places that Asheville was once known for, and we risk really Losing a large part of our economy, the tourism industry, because people can't afford to live and work  

Matt Peiken: You're mentioning some of these outlying cities and areas, and I know Just Economics, part of your study said that the living wage in rural counties, rural communities, is $16.40 an hour. Are we seeing that even met? Is that also a struggle for businesses to meet even there? Are businesses in Asheville struggling to meet the rural living wage and are businesses in the rural areas meeting that wage?

Vicki Meath: We use a different formula in our rural communities and we're doing recertification right now for our rural communities. We raise the rate every two years, so we raised it last year, then we recertify this year. We've already seen a bunch of employers coming in to recertify at the new rates.

Matt Peiken: You said you use a different formula. How is it different in the rural areas than in Asheville proper? 

Vicki Meath: Yeah, so in Asheville, we use a rate based on fair market rents and fair market rent is more challenging to assess in the rural communities because the formula that HUD uses to determine fair market rent is less accurate in the rural communities.

So in rural communities, we use 233 percent of the federal poverty guidelines for a single person as our formula. We spent a lot of time getting input, again, on the formula that we use in our rural community. 

Matt Peiken:  That seems a very specific number, 233%. How did you arrive at that? 

Vicki Meath: It's a number that corresponds to some other federal numbers.

The idea is that We want people to be making enough money to once you fall off that benefits cliff, right? So so many people are making too much money to qualify for public assistance, but not enough money to meet their basic needs and That's what we call the benefits cliff. So we want people to be able to get over that benefits cliff and 233 percent is based on another federal number that's a Medicaid number. Now the federal poverty guidelines are the same across 48 states in this country.

So they're the same in rural Iowa as they are in Asheville. And the same as they are in Marshall and the same as they are in Hendersonville. Brevard, and so we know that when we look at our formulas, we're basing it on a local context and we're receiving input from local employers, local employees and community members that are working with us.

Matt Peiken: Now, we have talked a lot about a Less than sunny landscape both for wages and for rents. Where are your signs of hope? What are you seeing and hearing in your conversations? What are you seeing in actual wages with employers? What are you seeing that is showing that the needle is moving, that other that people are taking responsibility and taking this issue Seriously and their own sense of ownership of these issues.

What positive steps are you seeing? 

Vicki Meath: I'd say first of all, that all of our living wage certified employers give me hope and are a positive sign that even in a challenging labor market where their costs are going up employer costs are rising as inflation rises, their rents are rising, that they're working to keep up with the living wage, but I'd also love Jen to speak to a little bit of the hope that we're seeing in labor organizing because what's happened in our economy in Asheville is a microcosm of what's happened across the country.

We've seen housing costs explode and we've seen while we've seen labor go up, we haven't seen labor keep up with inflation and housing costs, but that has really led to a rise and an increase in worker organizing and workers winning and workers coming together. 

Jen Hampton: Yeah, I also am very hopeful about the amount of worker organizing that has Arisen since the pandemic and it seems like the collective struggle that people are feeling has ceased to be more of an individual experience and rather a community experience.

People are realizing, because things are so dire and because, cost living is so high and the pandemic showed people that, Oh my God, we don't have paid sick time yet. We have to work in a restaurant when we're sick. People are starting to realize that it's a systemic issue these things and that the only way we're going to change it is by coming together and demanding better.

And there have been so many wins for workers, especially last year, the auto workers, the Teamsters, Waffle House workers down in South Carolina. It's just, it's been huge, The green sage workers unionizing right here in Asheville. The workers assembly, which I facilitate through just economics really has been a space for workers to collectively organize and support each other.

And through that organizing, and through the workers assembly, we got Asheville Food and Beverage United, which is now a labor union. All of this struggle and all of this strife, it's really hard, but it's also creating this sense of solidarity across the South, especially, but across the nation too.

And we're seeing things like workers organizing in the service industry started to pop up in Durham and Raleigh and Charleston in Charlotte and Virginia Beach. So really all of this Struggle, but also the wins that people are seeing from other worker organizing is giving me so much hope and optimism for the future.

Matt Peiken: Did you want to add something? 

Vicki Meath: Oh, I was just going to add one other sign of hope for me is that while I still think we have a ways to go, that our local elected leaders are paying attention. They are listening. We have this opportunity, for example, to affect the affordable housing plan that the city's doing.

Look like with a recognition that 80 percent of area median income isn't reaching people right now. We have a big development that the County is working on and County owned land at Ferry Road, where the county has some really good plans to facilitate affordable housing development.

I'm so glad that you asked this question about hope, because there is a lot of challenging things in our community right now, in our world, in this country. But there is signs of hope. There are employers that care about their employees and even when it's hard for them. And there are workers that are coming together and finding their power. And there are elected leaders that are listening. And so particularly on a local level, it feels Good that we're able to make some movement and to impact these things and not just throw up our hands and say, Oh there goes Asheville.