Voters in Nome may decide this fall whether to nearly double the city’s minimum wage. That’s after a group of high school students turned in a ballot petition to the city.
Renee Brown is a junior at Nome’s ANSEP Acceleration Academy. During the school year, she also works as a special education paraprofessional at Nome Elementary School.
“My coworkers are living out of conex containers, and they don't have vehicles, and they have to walk to and from work,” Brown said. “I think they deserve to be able to live and have vehicles and have a proper house, and I think that goes for anyone.”
To help make life in rural Alaska more affordable, Brown and the newly-formed Nome Living Wage for All Alliance want to nearly double Nome’s minimum wage – from $13 to $25 per hour.
It’s a dramatic change. But Nome-Beltz senior Kaya Kent said it's not as radical as it sounds.
“I just think $25 is still way less than what's actually necessary to live in Nome, and we thought of 25 being the number because it's a good middle ground to slowly work up to becoming more,” Kent said.
According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, adults in Nome need to make at least $24 to earn a living wage. And that’s if you don’t have kids. A family of four needs both parents making at least $28 per hour each, according to the MIT calculator.
Nome’s largest employer, Norton Sound Health Corporation, already offers wages starting at $25 per hour. But entry level jobs at grocers like Hansons Trading Company start at $14 for employees in high school. A meat department manager position at Nome's other grocery store, Alaska Commercial Co. is listed at $22 to $26 per hour. AC is also hiring for cashiers, stockers and clerks with wages up to $20 per hour.
Kent is headed to college in Colorado this fall, but said she plans to move back to Nome when she graduates.
“I want to live here, and have a family here, and I don't want to come back to Nome and see even more people struggling than there already are,” Kent said.
Saru Jayaraman is the President of One Fair Wage, a non-profit coordinating minimum wage increase efforts across the country. She said she met the group from Nome at a conference in Berkeley, CA.
“Over a series of meetings we helped them figure out what they wanted to do, figure out the process, talk to them about forming the Nome Living Wage For All Alliance, bringing other people into the fold,” Jayaraman said. “They're just such an impressive group of young women, and we're so proud to support them.”
Jayaraman said One Fair Wage’s research found that five out of six workers in Nome already earn $25 per hour or more.
“So you're talking about maybe 15 percent, 17 percentof the population that would get a raise, but it's still important, because as you raise the floor, then other people's wages do go up,” she said.
And with that extra income, Jayaraman said people can actually afford goods like groceries and gas that are only getting more expensive.
“Prices are going up like crazy in Nome, and across the country, gas prices are insanely high. Tariffs have made food prices so crazy high,” Jayaraman said. “If you want people to continue to buy groceries at the grocery store, we do need an increase in the general population's ability to consume.”
With those bare necessities covered, Nome-Beltz senior Sara James said people can tackle other, bigger problems.
“Instead of thinking about ‘what am I going to eat for dinner’, or ‘how am I going to feed my kids’, they could start to think about climate change, or politics, or all these other things that seem to be the most important,” James said.
The alliance dropped off a ballot petition to the City of Nome on May 21. The city is reviewing the petition and an ordinance drafted by the alliance. If accepted, the alliance will need to turn in signatures from at least 108 registered voters –a quarter of the total ballots cast during last year’s local election– before the increase can appear on this fall’s ballot.
Nome-Beltz senior and student representative to the Nome Common Council, Alora Stasenko, felt confident the group could get the signatures it needs.
"I think I have support in our community because we're not going for the majority or the minority, we're going for all, and I think that's the message that we need to spread," Stasenko said.
If passed, wage increases for large corporations would be phased in by 2029 and small businesses by 2032.
Members of the Nome Living Wage for All Alliance include Renee Brown, Kaya Kent, Sara James, Alora Stasenko, Claire Fagerstrom and Angela Omedelina.
