Starting in Baltimore in 1994 and building momentum ever since, local union leaders and activists from New York City to Santa Monica, Calif., have helped pass more than 100 living wage ordinances nationwide. The laws cover a wide range of workers—municipal employees, those working for city and county contractors, health care workers and college and university employees. A living wage is designed to ensure low-wage workers and their families can live above the poverty level.

With the buying power of the federal minimum wage plummeting and municipal governments privatizing jobs by giving lucrative contracts to companies that pay poverty wages, union and community activists are seeking creative strategies to lift wages for workers struggling to make ends meet.

Activists tailor the laws to local economic and political circumstances, but all the proposals are based on the principle that taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund poverty-level jobs. Some living wage ordinances include other measures, such as workers' retention, collective bargaining, anti-privatization and labor peace agreements, leading activists to dub them “living wage plus” ordinances. Such community campaigns catalyze community coalitions to help workers win fairness on the job after living wage campaigns succeed.