News Editor

Amy Goodman, 25, can tell you why she's been giving time to the drive to boost District wages.

"Living in D.C., we see poverty every day, so I feel strongly that our tax dollars should not be used to create jobs with poverty-level wages," says Goodman, a city resident who works as a research associate for a political consultant. "A person should be able to support themselves working full time."

Goodman and other activists with the District-based Jews United for Justice recently have gained extensive rabbinic support for their Living Wage Campaign.

By press time, 38 area rabbis ‹ from Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Jewish Renewal congregations ‹ had signed a statement favoring a living wage law in the nation's capital. The clergy lent their weight to the effort as individuals and their names do not commit their congregations.

This comes as the D.C. City Council is close to considering a living wage bill ‹ for employees of businesses contracted by the city for $100,000 or more ‹ which is slated for a vote on Tuesday. The District in 2004 raised its minimum wage from $6.15 (in effect from 1997 to 2004) to $7 per hour.

Yet a report jointly released last week by two area think tanks, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute, suggests that disparities of wealth among city residents still rose substantially during the past two decades. CBPP and EPI are both largely foundation funded, with EPI getting 20 percent of its support from labor groups.

From the early 1980s to the early 2000s, their report states, the mean income of the poorest fifth of families grew by just $382 from $12,321 to $12,703, and that of the richest fifth of families grew from $87,337 to $157,699.

JUFJ advocates a District law mandating a wage of $11.75 per hour, to include part-time workers and have an annual index to inflation.

Several area municipalities already have similar statutes, with restrictions, for contractual work. These measures set wages at $11.15 for Montgomery County, $10.80 for Prince George's County, $11.22 and $11.80 for the City of Alexandria, according to the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute.

Rabbis Ethan Seidel of the District's Tifereth Israel Congregation, Jack Moline of Alexandria's Agudas Achim Congregation and Jack Luxemburg of Rockville's Temple Beth Ami endorsed a letter last month urging support from other rabbis.

"For a worker to go home at the end of the day without a sufficient amount of money to live to the next day is, I think, a violation of Jewish law and government should be modeling that standard," Moline said in an interview last week, explaining why he backs the living wage campaign.

Notable among those not signing the rabbinic statement of support were members of the area's Orthodox rabbinate.

Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of the District's Ohev Sholom Talmud Torah voiced reservations about JUFJ's living wage campaign.

"I'm interested in working with them to help lower-income people, but I don't know enough to sign this proposal," said Herzfeld, noting its controversy. "Some might suggest that this type of proposal might hurt low-income workers."

For early supporter Seidel, however, wage levels have an impact on access to affordable homes for District workers.

"I think ultimately this is an issue of housing," Seidel said, when asked about his support for the living wage measure. "Prices have gone up so dramatically that the people who serve us and work with us can't actually afford to live in our neighborhoods."

JUFJ has been laboring for a living wage bill since last June, urging amendments that would raise the wage above the $9.25 urged by Mayor Anthony Williams. The group featured wage hikes in its annual Labor on the Bimah program, which involved 32 area Jewish congregations.

A Sept. 26 meeting on the living wage called by JUFJ and its partner groups ‹ including DC Jobs with Justice, DC Fiscal Policy Institute and DC Employment Justice Center ‹ at Ward 5's Israel Baptist Church drew council members Linda Cropp, Adrian Fenty, Phil Mendelson and Kathy Patterson, according to JUFJ. Vincent B. Orange Sr., who chairs the Committee on Government Operations, did not attend, but sent an aide.

JUFJ held a Nov. 22 rally and press conference for the living wage campaign with Rabbi Robert Saks, of the District's Bet Mishpachah congregation, as featured speaker.

Summing up his own support in an interview Monday, Luxemburg cited traditional Jewish concerns for the working poor.

"What our sources ask of us is to be sensitive to the needs of people who labor, to be sure their needs are provided for and that they earn sufficiently so they can provide for life's necessities and can live with dignity," said Luxemburg, a former president of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington, which opposed the living wage bill in Montgomery County several years ago.