I am Khushboo, I am part of the Certification team at B Lab Australia & Aotearoa New Zealand.
I wanted to flag updates to the two living wage questions (under the Workers Impact Area) in the B Impact Assessment.
The B Impact Assessment is now offering companies with workforces in Australia the opportunity to opt into additional answer selections in the Living Wage questions.
You would need to contact WageIndicator or Fair Wage Network. These organisations have been determined by the B Lab Global Standards team to have credible living wage methodologies and are providing companies either with paid datasets or confirmation at no cost on whether the minimum wage is equal to a living wage, based on where their workforces are located.
Apart from what you are paying your workers, you would also need to provide evidence of living wage confirmation from either of these two organisations during verification. An example of confirmation might be a written communication from WageIndicator saying that the minimum wage is equal to living wage in Australia, based on their methodology. At the moment, we have observed that companies are getting a faster response from WageIndicator.
The āLearn Moreā text in the question will provide you with more information on selecting the correct answer option.
If you prefer not to reach out to these organisations for verifiable living wage data that is okay, please select the N/A answer option and you wonāt āmiss outā on points as they will get partially redistributed to other questions as well to the āN/Aā points score in your assessment.
@Khushboo thank you for the update although I am drilling down for Living wage for Indiv & family database and are you able to confirm for Australia what is needed as I have checked and you seem to need to purchase a high fee result to include both. Is this right please? I need to give details to our COO. Here is website where I have been checking detail & $: Living Wage Database Access - WageIndicator.org
1 Region in Context
ā¬ 775 per region Includ Indiv & Family (Total points avail 1.48 + 0.99 = 2.47 of 5.92) at moment about AUD $1,268.83
Thanks, Jaz
@kushboo we contacted Wage Indicator to check if āOur Lowest Paid Wageā was higher than the Living Wage and their response was:
*"The Minimum wage in Australia is higher than the Living Wage, so please focus on the Minimum wage."
Based on their response, is it correct to assume that as our lowest paid wage is higher than the Australian Minimum Wage, we can answer in the affirmative to the BIA Living Wage questions?
In my understanding, based on the response from Wage Indicator, you can answer in the affirmative to the BIA Living Wage questions. However, please note that the answers are verified by B Lab Global Analysts in the Verification stage of the review process. In addition to this, ensure you provide a screenshot of the response from the Wage Indicator along with a document of what you are paying your workers.
As mentioned in the above post,
"You would need to contact WageIndicator or Fair Wage Network . These organisations have been determined by the B Lab Global Standards team to have credible living wage methodologies and are providing companies either with paid datasets or confirmation at no cost on whether the minimum wage is equal to a living wage, based on where their workforces are located"
Therefore, I would request you to contact these organisations directly via email/query form available on their website to get an understanding of whether a paid dataset would be required or if they can give you a confirmation regarding your living wage via email at no cost.
@Khushboo thank you. I have emailed each of the Fair Wage Network twice to each of these emails (info@fair-wage.com & orp@fair-wage.com) and have heard nothing in about a month so I then 4 times and even emailed WageIndicator.org so hoping to hear back soon. Thank you for clarifying. I have also read @Genevieve_Flanagan post so have used similar info. I am asking for Minimum Wage data so when I hear back from them I will also `ensure the email screenshot from WageIndicator and payroll document is included for verification regarding this answer. Thanks, Jaz
We are in a similar situation to Jaz. We have contacted both WageIndicator and Fair Wage Network since March 2023 (it has now been several times) and have had no response. We have both employees in AU and US. For the US - Living Wage Data is readily available through Living Wage in the US.