Durham's pay floor for city workers and contractors hit $25.09 an hour in July and is set at $27.38 next year. City, county and school leaders discuss it Tuesday.
Durham’s minimum pay for city employees and city contractors has climbed to $25.09 an hour, up 35.9% in three years. Under the formula in city law, it is already set to reach $27.38 an hour next July.
City Manager W. Bowman Ferguson has asked city, county and school leaders to talk about how fast it is rising. Representatives of the City Council, the Durham County Board of Commissioners and the Durham Public Schools Board of Education meet at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 13.
The meeting of the Joint City-County Committee with the school board is in the second-floor committee room at City Hall, 101 City Hall Plaza. Mayor Pro Tem Javiera Caballero presides. The agenda packet sets aside 45 minutes for the wage discussion. No vote on the wage is scheduled.
What the wage covers
The Durham Minimum Livable Wage is not a minimum wage for private employers. North Carolina law does not let cities set one. Durham applies it through its own payroll and its contracts.
According to Ferguson’s Oct. 6 memo in the packet, the wage:
- is the starting pay for regular, full-time city employees
- is the minimum that service contractors on city contracts must pay their workers
- has been set by a housing formula since 2016 and rises automatically each year
- can never go down, under the city code, even if rents fall
The formula assumes a full-time worker spends 30% of their pay on a one-bedroom apartment at the federal fair market rent for the Durham-Chapel Hill area.
How fast it has risen
The memo shows the floor rising from $15.46 an hour in fiscal 2020 to $25.09 in the current fiscal year, which began July 1. That is $52,190 a year for a full-time worker.
| Fiscal year | Hourly rate | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | $15.46 | Starting point |
| 2022-23 | $17.60 | +4.0% |
| 2024-25 | $19.58 | +6.1% |
| 2025-26 | $21.90 | +11.9% |
| 2026-27 (current) | $25.09 | +14.6% |
| 2027-28 (set) | $27.38 | +9.1% |
| 2028-29 (projected) | $29.40 | +7.4% |
The projected 2028-29 rate is 90.2% above the 2019-20 rate, the memo said.
The memo puts the recent jumps down to fast rent growth across the Triangle and to changes in how the federal government calculates fair market rents. It also says the rent area combines Durham with Orange County, which includes Chapel Hill, about nine miles southwest, and Carrboro. That pulls in university-town rents.
The gap with Durham Public Schools
The memo says entry-level classified staff at Durham Public Schools start at $18.22 an hour this year. That is $6.87 an hour, or $14,289 a year, below the city’s floor.
If school pay stays near that level, the memo projects the gap will grow to $9.16 an hour in 2027-28 and $11.18 an hour in 2028-29. It names bus drivers, instructional assistants, cafeteria workers and custodians among the hard-to-fill school jobs. It also says current data does not show the pay gap is the only cause of hiring problems.
Inside city government, the memo says the rising floor has squeezed pay scales. New hires now earn close to what long-serving staff are paid, and contract costs for services such as cleaning and security have gone up.
Options on the table
The memo lists other ways places set a living wage. It says they are preliminary and for discussion only, while a city pay and classification study is underway:
- average rents across several neighboring counties instead of the federal rent area
- use a full cost-of-living basket, such as the MIT Living Wage Calculator
- tie yearly increases to inflation, which the memo says usually means 2.5% to 4.5% a year
- blend studio and one-bedroom rents, which it estimates would give $24.15 an hour this year
- credit employers for health insurance, which it estimates would give a $21.10 cash rate
- cap yearly increases at 4% to 5% or use a three-year average
City staff will take direction from the City Council on next steps, the memo said. It also notes that staff used artificial intelligence tools to help draft it, along with city records and staff analysis.
Sally Hodges-Copple, a senior public policy analyst at the N.C. Budget & Tax Center, is also on the agenda to present.
What it means for you
- City workers and contract workers: nothing changes Tuesday. The $25.09 rate stands, and $27.38 is due next July unless the City Council changes the ordinance.
- To follow it: the full memo and presentations are in the Oct. 13 agenda packet. The committee’s next meeting is 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 9, in the Durham County Commissioners Chamber.
- More from city hall: our guide to who to call at City Hall lists the departments and how to reach them.
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