Although summer starts tomorrow (June 21), we are already a busy time for the Living Wage Policy Study. We are working to replicate my earlier study of living wage policies and practices in U.S. Jesuit institutions and explore the prevalence of living wage policies and practices in higher education more broadly in a period of higher inflation and the aftermath of the Covid pandemic.

I’m delighted that Daniel De Lude (’25) has joined the Living Wage Policy Study as a research associate. Working as an SJU Summer Scholar, Daniel is extending my earlier research on written living wage policies and unwritten living wage practices in U.S. Jesuit higher education institutions (Weidner, 2020). Daniel will be interviewing CHROs and researching institutional websites and using the Just Employment Policy Assessment I published earlier this year (Weidner, 2023). The survey of CHROs at Jesuit institutions in the U.S. will commence this week. Our hope is that all 27 U.S. Jesuit institutions will participate in the survey.

I am surveying institutions and interviewing CHROs from other segments of U.S. higher education beginning this summer and continuing into the fall.

As with all of our studies to date, participating institutions will:

• receive a prepublication summary of preliminary results; and
• not be identified in any subsequent publications.

Warmly, Ken