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Wilmington staff recommends $21.89/hour minimum as part of FY27 living-wage framework
Summary
City staff proposed a living-wage floor for full-time employees of $21.89 per hour ($45,531/year), tied to 60% Area Median Income (AMI). Staff said modeling will follow and warned the change would almost certainly require a property-tax increase to fund across-the-board pay adjustments.
City staff on Wednesday laid out a proposed living-wage framework intended to make Wilmington more competitive for recruiting and retaining frontline and skilled workers. The recommended minimum for full-time employees is $21.89 per hour — $45,531 annually — aligned to 60% of the area median income (AMI) metric used in the discussion.
The city manager framed the proposal as an effort to address recruitment and retention problems across public works, police, fire and other departments. Staff presented data showing that roughly 79% of positions advertised have starting pay below 80% of AMI and that 51% of current employees (536 individuals) earn below 80% AMI; 141 employees — about 13% of the workforce — earn below 60% AMI based on a single-person household calculation.
Staff said targeting a $21.89 hourly minimum would lift the entire pay scale: the analysis projected that all full‑time employees would reach at least 60% AMI and that the share earning at least 80% AMI would rise from 51% to an estimated 72%. The manager said the shift would make Wilmington a regional market leader on base pay for many positions but acknowledged that to prevent compression it would require across-the-board movements in pay grades.
Staff also discussed practical constraints and next steps. They estimated an average per-employee increase of about $9,381 annually to move the current minimum ($17.38/hr or $36,150/year) to the 60% AMI target. Because the change affects the entire pay scale, staff said it is “not reasonable to think that we would be able to afford this without some kind of a property tax increase.” Staff pledged to return in January with detailed cost estimates and implementation options for council consideration.
Council and staff discussed recruitment tools already in use — including a $25,000 sign-on bonus for certified police officers — and statutory limits (North Carolina does not permit certain training-repayment agreements used elsewhere). Staff also flagged other retention measures such as career ladders, tuition reimbursement, and incremental pay steps for newly sworn officers.
Staff recommended that council provide initial feedback; if council supports the concept, staff will model cost and implementation options and present them in January as part of the FY27 budget process.
