A Thriving Wage? In This Economy?!

This blog post was co-written with Mala Nagarajan

Friends, times are bleak, and the forecast is cloudy, with chances of perpetual oligarchy. The owning class isn’t even pretending to be into democracy anymore, and is going all in on skipping over due process, self-selectively interpreting constitutional rights, decimating the social safety net, eviscerating the public sector, and playing monopoly with costs of basic goods. People we know and love are being taken out in the street, losing their families, homes, and homelands. Our communities are under attack, and the work of our movements is under intense scrutiny and backlash. 

Reading this now, we know you may be fearing for your job. You may be fearing for your children’s future. You may be fearing for your life and right to exist, just as you are. (Nb: you have a right to exist, just as you are.)

All that and with what has become a now pretty constant state of always being juuuust on the brink of a recession, we have been deliberating something difficult over here in our equitable compensation arena that we continue to feel is important. And that’s whether, given how heavy our lives feel right now, it’s the right time to bring up the oh-so-light conversational topic of setting a thriving wage. 

I mean, really, is it? 

We say…yes. Yes? Yes…yes. Yes. We think so.

We define “thriving wage” as the wage needed to not just cover basic necessities, but to allow us to build savings and still have some funds to spend however we wish. So for us a thriving wage is not living in luxury or even having every need and want met, but having some version of “enough” in a social system that tells us we never, ever, ever have enough. 

In this time of tremendous uncertainty and legitimate fear, we still believe that we should care about fair, sustainable, equitable pay. In that spirit, we want to share with you a resource that will give you not answers (sorry), but a sense of shared struggle, purpose, and forward momentum in our collective work to live into a more just and equitable future. We’ve created The Journey Toward a Thriving Wage, a resource guide that elaborates on our theory for why setting a thriving wage is both so impossible and painful for so many social change organizations, and yet also charts a path forward for how an organization might still work towards a thriving wage over time.

This guide came about largely because we are deeply motivated to support movement-building groups in resourcing their teams with more than just what they need to get by. If anything, this call is growing even stronger in these times of economic downturn. If we don’t take care of each other now, who will?

This guide also came about because we have seen in our work, time and time again, how trying to meet all the needs that staff may have runs up against some very real organizational constraints. The groups we work with share a commitment to their teams, but very often cannot increase wages to the degree they wish to for reasons only partly within - and sometimes completely outside of - their control. And we have seen staff seek individual redress without fully understanding those organizational limitations or seeing themselves as situated within a larger group where an increase in pay for one person impacts the whole. Such a struggle can be incredibly challenging and painful for teams to navigate, especially when those who are paid the most set the pay and conditions of employment for those who are paid the least. And especially especially when those who are paid the most have the most privileged identities, real or perceived, or don’t reflect the core populations served by an organization.

If you have been approaching setting a thriving wage as a problem to solve, I’d like to invite you to free yourself now. Let that shit go. Heck, no one has needed to hear that more than us! We so very much wish we could solve this problem of people not having enough, not being able to live whole and sustainable lives while dedicating their time to the movements we need to bring about widescale change. 

But instead of seeing it as a problem to solve, we must see a thriving wage as a shared vision we must strive for over the long haul. Like all the forms of liberation we are fighting for, a thriving wage is not something that can be fixed at the individual or single organizational level. It’s the long game, and it takes all of us.

Nonprofit organizations cannot account for all structural inequality or address every individual need, especially when the forecast is cloudy and funds are tight, and we don’t know what’s going to happen next. Nevertheless, it is our duty as social justice organizations to do our best thinking and bravest actions within the constraints we have, in all weather conditions.

So while now may feel like the worst time to talk about a thriving wage, it may also be exactly the right time. When better to commit to a dream of something different than this, something better for everyone? When better to acknowledge there may be no clear or easy answer, but there is always something we can do? With The Journey to a Thriving Wage, we invite you to look at the lay of the land, chart your path, and follow your compass in the direction of your organization’s highest calling.