Rhonda Holland, 44, has learned how to do without things that others take for granted. She works for minimum wage at a gas station in downtown Medford. A new study says a single person in Jackson County needs to make $11.03 an hour to pay the bills. (Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell)Like many Jackson County residents, Rhonda Holland scrapes by every month, putting off going to the dentist or buying new clothes in order to put a meal on her table.
"I've learned to make ends meet," said the 44-year-old Medford woman, who earns $7.50 an hour as a gas station attendant. "I have no extravagances. I don't go to the movies. I don't rent movies. We don't get video games."
Holland was surprised to learn that a new study released Tuesday by the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations finds that a Jackson County resident needs at least $11.03 an hour to pay the bills.
Holland said she would settle for far less. "It would be nice if the minimum wage would be $8 or $8.50," she said. "It would give you a leg up."
The study calculates a living wage by taking into account what it costs for basic food, clothing, housing, taxes, health care and transportation expenses.
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Sixty-three percent of Oregon jobs provide a living wage for single workers, according to the study. But the percentage falls dramatically for workers with children.
A new analysis in this year's study reveals that for Latino families of three, 76 percent don't receive a living wage compared to 55 percent for whites. Latinos, which make up the largest minority in Oregon, topped the list of minorities who don't receive a living wage, followed by African Americans at 67 percent and Native Americans at 60 percent.
Beverly DeLeonardis, of the low-income advocacy group Oregon Action, said that for a single adult with two children, only 17 percent of the jobs in Oregon provide a living wage, calculated at $48,667, or $23.40 an hour.
For a single person, the gap between a living wage and actual salaries has remained about the same over the past four years, DeLeonardis said.
Oregon's minimum wage of $7.50 calculates to $15,600 a year based on a 40-hour week. A single adult with two children earning minimum wage would fall below the federal poverty level of $16,600.
DeLeonardis said she has generally noticed a "negative attitude" among many employers toward the idea of a living wage.
"The whole valley is suppressing the wages," she said. The middle class is being eroded as corporations eye their bottom line, leading to the kind of situation the country was in before the Depression of the 1930s, she said.
"We're excluding families from the American dream," said DeLeonardis.
Rep. Peter Buckley, who was at the release of the new study along with representatives from Oregon Action, said, "The middle class is evaporating."
Buckley said more needs to be done to make sure people are getting a wage that sustains them.
"It's in everybody's interest where people who work here can live here," he said.
Holland said she barely manages to live here, having to do without health or dental insurance and struggling to pay back a recent hospital stay for cancer.
She credits part of her subsistence on her disabled partner, 42-year-old Todd Wolf, who receives assistance from DASIL, a Medford social services agency, food stamps, and La Clinica del Valle health center. Holland will get a bit of a break in January, when minimum wage increases to $7.80 an hour.
Even though Holland manages to get by, she said she has a long wish list of things she just can't afford.
"I'd like to have new tires on the truck and some new clothes, and maybe some savings," she said. "If something happens like an emergency, I'd like to have something to take care of it."
Reach reporter Damian Mann at 776-4476 or dmann@mailtribune.com.
