Four years ago, Durham-based singer-songwriter Charles Latham recorded a song called “The Living Wage” for his LP Fast Loans. The song is an anthem about trying to keep your head above water and living on a dime—even if you’re working a full-time job—and the effect it can have on your mental health. “For the living wage,” Latham sings, “It’s just enough to pay the bills and rent, it’s not enough to spend.”
Latham’s song seemed to foreshadowed a movement. Low-income workers, including those at fast-food restaurants, have recently won huge minimum wage victories in California, New York, and Oregon. In North Carolina, the Living Wage Projects in Durham and Chapel Hill have seen success in getting companies in those cities to pay their employees a better living by choice if the city (or state) won’t require them to.
With that in mind, Latham re-released the song four months ago as a full-band, twangy track, complete with slide guitar, to benefit the Durham Living Wage Project and the Scottish Living Wage Project. We spoke with him about the song, being broke, and the future of the movement.
Embed for The Living Wage
