commissioner.org
| Source | Mike Ballard |
| Date | 04/04/27/16:34 |
| BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, DAILY REPORT, FRIDAY,
APRIL 23, 2004: The 34 million workers who earn less than $8.70 per hour are falling behind in their standard of living because of "myopic" business cost-cutting, government deregulation, and technological changes, according to the authors of: "Low-Wage America: How Employers are Reshaping Opportunity in the Workplace" by Eileen Appelbaum, a professor and director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University, and others. Funded by the Russell Save and Rockefeller Foundations and published in December 2003, the study surveyed some 10,000 workers and managers in 25 predominantly low-wage industries, and dozens of case studies of companies and industries were developed. "Structural changes in the U.S. economy have increased the pressures faced by employers, and their responses have worsened labor market outcomes for high school educated workers," the study said. "These changes are so profound that even the extremely tight 1990s labor markets, which resulted in the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years, did not allow the real earnings of male high school graduates to return to their 1970 levels." Of the 277,000 workers that the Department of Labor reported were added to private payrolls in March, two-thirds were in low wage industries, such as retail trade, food and drink establishments, janitorial services, home health nursing, repair, and maintenance, Appelbaum said. The study found that many of the cost-cutting strategies used by employers have disproportionately affected low-wage workers. Rather than innovate their services, improve quality, and train and empower workers, many have cut costs by freezing or lowering wages, reducing benefits, increasing workloads, subcontracting, using temporary workers, automating and moving or outsourcing low-skill jobs to low-wage areas here and in other countries, it said. The real value of the minimum wage has decreased to 40 percent below its 1968 level, the study said. If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation, it would be $8.46 today instead of $5.15. The problem is expected to persist. Of the 10 occupations that the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates will have the greatest job growth between now and 2012, seven pay below-average wages (under $41,820 per year), including five that pay "very low" wages, Appelbaum said (Daily Labor Report). |
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