START LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD FOR THE MAJORITY OF OUR POPULATION ON GUAM

Using a Relocation Assessor from the Economic Research Institute, the cost of living for a family size of four is only about a 16% difference between Guam and Hawaii. Why is it that a construction job in Hawaii pays about an average of $26.85 compared to the average pay on Guam of about $12.70? The cost of living difference is less than 20% but the average pay in Hawaii is over half of what construction workers get paid on Guam. This is just one example of how wages on Guam have been driven so low due to the fact that profit margins are set so high. The majority of our workforce on Guam earns below the poverty line. Utilities, gas, food, etc. are all in the rise yet wages are stagnant. Our economy will not improve unless we start putting more money into workers’ pockets so that they can spend it back into our economy. A common concern with a wage increase is that the cost of everything else will go up. Just recently the Federal Minimum Wage was raised and so far there haven’t been any findings that prove this concern to be true. If we don’t act now in raising the standard of living on Guam, wages will continue to be suppressed and our economy will continue to thrive for only the small privileged few while the majority of our population struggle for a better living. Check out one way we can improve our situation on Guam