Kim Webb moved from Florida to Sussex County in May 2019. Thus far, she is not living the high life. As a solo act — a single person with no children — Ms. Webb’s hourly wage ranks above the $6 per hour poverty rate for Sussex County and above the state’s $9.25 minimum wage but below the county’s projected livable/living wage of $11.91, as determined by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Calculator.“Right now, the livable wage, if you look at people, we have so many people not even making it on livable wages. That is not cutting it,” said First State Community Action Agency Executive Director Bernice Edwards.
• Delaware politicians need to focus on bringing higher-paying jobs to the state, so people can make a living wage. — Michael Alamorian Jr.
• Get a better job. Working minimum wage is for starting out in the workforce and to make extra money. Part time is not a career. — David A. Gibson
• Says the ancestor of slave masters. Let’s reverse the past and see how you like it. — Dennis Patrick
• Minimum wage was created to be the minimum living wage for an individual. They’ve just convinced people it’s something else over the past 50 years. — Chris Henry
• “Get a better job” is an oversimplification of a complicated issue. — Anne Murray
• The missing piece is dignity. Everyone deserves to live with dignity. — Kristin Froehlich
• Minimum wage is for high school students living with their parents. No adult should be making minimum wage. — Stephen Terrance Herd
• Want a job that pays more than minimum wage? Bring an employer more than minimum-wage skills. — Chris Ostrom
• When the Republicans ran this state, we had high-paying jobs with very low unemployment. The Democrats took over, and we lost Chrysler, GM, DuPont, CitiSteel, all the banks and the chemical companies. — Joe Curry
• If you stay at the $11/hour entry-level positions, you’re not putting your best foot forward. Many of these jobs aren’t glamorous, but they are filled with a lot of opportunity. People need to make the most of that, not be handed something that’s only going to increase everyone’s cost of living. — Becky Fennell Lovin
• The reality is the cost of living has skyrocketed without wages going up. I agree with adjusting the full pay scale — the reality is that would be fair, and there are a lot of people that are underpaid because of greedy corporations. It’s just not going to happen. — Beth Gallagher
