City Councilmember Lauren Hammond, co-sponsor of the Living Wage Ordinance, acknowledged the difficulties of compromise and expressed pride in the work done by the Living Wage Coalition and City Council.

The original ordinance wage proposal called for $10/hour, but compromise with opposition such as the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce reduced the wage to $9/hour. The Chamber of Commerce would have preferred "direct connect," a system of helping the working poor by directing them to goverment welfare services when their wages proved insufficient for life's necessities. A proposed amendment to the Living Wage Ordinance would direct the city to allocate $100,000 to a "Direct Connect" fund and invites the Chamber of Commerce to participate in kind.