Daybreak Arts certified as a Nashville Living Wage Employer
We're excited to announce that we're officially certified as a Nashville Living Wage employer! The Nashville Living Wage organization is a membership-based, volunteer-led organization based in Nashville, TN. Their mission is to educate our community on the importance and urgency of a "more just" minimum wage.
As a nonprofit social enterprise dedicated to increasing access to income for unhoused and housing-insecure artists, we understand intimately how many people experiencing homelessness and poverty work 40-hours a week and can barely survive or pay rent. Meanwhile, in the nonprofit field, many CEO’s make six-figures while the staff providing the direct services can barely afford their basic necessities. Simultaneously, that staff is often convinced to juggle the work of multiple positions and neglect their work/life boundaries for the important cause. Overtime, this harms employees as they become burn out, as well as creates high staff turn-over for the organization. As Daybreak Arts works towards embodying our core values, we are committed to challenging the status quo and making sure everyone who contributes to our organization feels that their labor is valued and compensated in a meaningful and fair way. For our staff, this means paying everyone above the NLW. For our artists, this means they have full autonomy to price their own artwork and earn 70% of sales. In our pricing guide which assists artists in pricing original artwork, we encourage them to use the $20/hr independent contractor wage as a starting hourly wage as they track how long the art takes them to create. We also have them consider education, audience, previous sales, etc. Another way our artists get paid is through teaching artist stipends or live painting. These rates range from $30-$50/hour when we pay them for these additional opportunities.
THE NASHVILLE LIVING WAGE RATE is based on the "survival wage" rate for Davidson County, which was determined by the 2020 ALICE Report from the United Way of Tennessee. ALICE stands for Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed. This defines the current struggles of households that earn above the Federal Poverty Level but not enough to afford necessities on their household budget.
SURVIVAL WAGE provides only the bare minimum necessities a worker needs to survive in Davidson County.
STABILITY WAGE in Davidson County is $32.78/hour. This is unattainable for many employers, which is why the survival wage is used as our baseline.
THE CURRENT NLW RATE is $15.40 with Healthcare and Benefits, and $17.40 without Healthcare and Benefits. Independent contractors, who are self-employed and receive a 1099 tax form, must be paid at least $2/hour more than the current NLW rate (at least $19.40/hour) in order to account for Social Security and Medicare taxes.
2020 ALICE REPORT is based on economic data from 2018 and before. Learn more at https://www.nashvillelivingwage.com/