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Wilmington staff proposes living-wage pay philosophy tied to 60% AMI; full implementation would cost millions

Wilmington City Council (work session) · February 6, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Staff proposed a living-wage policy that sets the minimum city salary to 60% of area median income (about $45,531/year for a single household), which staff estimated would cost roughly $14.6M to implement from the general fund and could require a worst-case tax-rate adjustment equivalent of 4.1¢ if no offsets are found.

City staff proposed a new pay philosophy that would set a municipal "living wage" equal to 60% of area median income (AMI) for New Hanover County and rebase the city’s pay scales from that floor. "We define the living wage as 60% of the area median income," staff said, and gave $45,531 as the annual equivalent for a single-household 60% AMI (about $21.89 per hour at a 2,080-hour year).

Staff said about 13% of the city’s full-time workforce currently earns below that 60% threshold and…

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