Monitoring Progress to Achieve SDG 8 in Baltimore
During the consultative process in Baltimore as part of SDSN's USA Sustainable Cities Initiative (USA-SCI), stakeholders identified “Percent of Residents Earning a Living Wage” as a relevant indicator to set and track targets for SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) in Baltimore. While the political support was there for the increase in the minimum wage, the percent of Baltimore’s population that was earning a living wage – which incorporates the household composition – had not been calculated for the City. Using a living wage methodology established by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the results show that households with two adults were far more likely to earn more than the living wage than households with only one adult. For 1-adult households with children the impacts are even more severe. Only 13% of 1-adult/1-child households earn more than the living wage; only 6.4% of 1-adult/2-children households earned more than the living wage. A key implication of this calculation is that any single minimum wage legislation would actually not achieve a living wage for everyone in all household types in Baltimore. In fact, the analysis shows that access to quality and affordable childcare, particularly for pre-school ages, for all household types would be worth campaigning for in Baltimore. This issue brief provides detailed technical guidelines for other cities to calculate the percent of residents earning a living wage.
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