Michelle Murray is the founder of Living Wage For US, a U.S. based national living wage certification system launched in November 2021. The For US Living Wage Standard was developed through a consultative process convened by Oxfam America, including unions, labor advocates, leading employers, and gender justice organizations. Michelle’s experience is global in nature, having focused on living wage and living income for the last decade as former coordinator of the Global Living Wage Coalition and founder and CEO of On-Up LLC. Much of Michelle’s work centers on tying research to action by managing and providing technical backstopping for living wage/income studies, gaining global and country specific acceptance of living wage/income benchmarks, implementing living wage/income requirements and strategies, supporting the development of living wage certification systems or requirements in existing sustainability standards systems, and moving entire industries toward living wage and living income targets through advocacy and multi-stakeholder engagement.
Before managing the work of the Global Living Wage Coalition, Michelle served as Director of Operations for Social Accountability International, home of the SA8000 standard. Michelle has also supported living wage/income initiatives of the World Banana Forum (WBF), World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), Global Coffee Platform (GCP), and the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA).
