Underemployment: Truth vs. Myth

[JaySherman]

Beth Shulman: Underemployment in America - Four myths about low-wage work

AS THE PRESIDENTIAL campaigns seek definition, one pivotal issue remains hidden from view. It is potentially huge, especially for Democrats, because it involves their natural constituents, and it addresses core issues of the economy, social justice and fairness. The issue is low-wage work.

Fully 30 million Americans -- one in four U.S. workers -- earn $8.70 an hour or less, a rate that works out to $18,100 a year, which is the current official poverty level in the United States for a family of four. These low-wage jobs usually lack health-care, child-care, pension and vacation benefits. Their working conditions are often grueling, dangerous, even humiliating.

At the same time, more and more middle-class jobs are taking on many of these same characteristics, losing the security and benefits once taken for granted.

The shameful reality of low-wage work in America should be on every Democrat's cue card as a potential weapon to be used against the Republicans' rosy economic scenario. But so far it isn't.

Why not? One reason may be four long-standing myths that have for years drowned out a rational discussion of what should be a national call to conscience:


http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/projo_20030825_ctjobs.2ed8a.html

[papau]

1. Interesting - and factual- her "4 Myths" should be part of every Dem's act

Myth 1: Low-wage work is merely a temporary step on the ladder to a better job. According to the American dream, if you work hard, apply yourself and play by the rules, you will be able to earn a decent living for yourself and your family. If you fail to move up, you must be lazy or incompetent.
The truth: Low-wage job mobility is minimal. Low-wage workers have few career ladders. Those of us lucky enough to have better-paying employment depend on them every day. They are nursing-home and home-health-care workers who care for our parents; they are poultry processors who bone and package our chicken; they are retail clerks in department stores, grocery stores and convenience stores; they are housekeepers and janitors who keep our hotel rooms and offices clean; they are billing and telephone call-center workers who take our complaints and answer our questions; and they are teaching assistants in our schools and child-care workers who free us so that we can work ourselves.

<snip>Myth 2: Training and new skills solve the problem. Low-wage workers are said to lack the necessary skills for better-paying work in our changing economy. What's needed is retraining and better education for everyone.
The truth: The problem is that there are fewer better jobs to move into. The percentage of low-wage jobs is growing, not shrinking. The growing sectors of our economy are the labor-intensive industries. The two lowest-paid work categories, retail and service, increased their share of the job market from 30 percent to 48 percent between 1965 and 1998. By the end of the decade, the low end of the job market will account for more than 30 percent of the American workforce. There will be about 1.8 million software engineers and computer-support specialists, but more than 3.8 million cashiers.

<snip>Myth 3: Globalization stops us from doing anything about this problem. Between 1979 and 1999, 3 million manufacturing jobs vanished as global trade brought in textiles, shoes, cars and steel produced by overseas labor. In June 2003 alone, 56,000 manufacturing jobs were lost. American employers must keep wages and benefits low if they are to compete in the global marketplace.
The truth: Very few low-wage jobs are now in globally competitive industries. It is true that global trade has had a profound impact on our economy and on American workers. But companies in China are not competing with child-care providers, nursing homes, restaurants, security-guard firms and janitorial services in the United States. Checking out groceries, waiting on tables, servicing office equipment and tending the sick cannot be done from overseas.

<snip>Myth 4: Low-wage jobs are merely the result of an efficient market. The economy is a force of nature, and we as a society have little control over whatever difficulties it creates.
The truth: The economic world we live in is the result of our creation, not natural law. America's low-wage workers have little power to change their conditions because of a series of political, economic and corporate decisions over the past quarter-century that undercut the bargaining power of workers, especially those in lower pay grades.

<snip>The world's richest country should not tolerate such treatment of more than a fourth of its workers. The myths of upward mobility and inevitable market forces blind too many people to the grim reality of low-wage work. A presidential campaign is the right time to begin a conversation on how to change it.

[pnb]

2. some more info...

Hmmm..some different information. Also, I can't find statistics for the income group mentioned in the earlier article that says how many of the people mentioned were teenagers.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. However...

the graph does not indicate whether the teenager in question is perhaps trying to earn money for college and would not be able to attend even the local community college without summer and after-school earnings.

I even had a student who worked at a Dairy Queen so that she could not only earn money but also eat her one alloted ice cream treat during the shift, which substituted for a meal.

An "average" household income of $43,000 is meaningless unless you also include the median (the figure that shows the middle of the range--half are above, and half are below) and the mode (the most common figure).

To take an oversimplified example, you could have twenty families each earning $20,000 a year, and one family whose teen-ager works at minimum wage for "character building" but which has an annual income of $1 million. Take 20 x 20,000 = 400,000. Add $1 million, for $1,400,000. Now divide that figure by 21, the number of families being considered. You get an "average" of $66,666.66..., an income that no family in this group actually has.

It also does not account for differences in the cost of living in various regions. $43,000 would be a comfortable living in Mississippi, but quite sparse in the Bay Area or New York City.

Consider this as well: a person earning $7 an hour makes about $14,500 before taxes. Subtract this from the $43,000 figure, and you get $28,500. Not so generous, huh?

I think everyone should read the book How to Lie With Statistics. It's about forty years old now, but the distortion techniques it describes are still used every day.

[papau]

4. When caught in a Stat "lie" the GOP say nobody cares about numbers -

they want leadership.

And our media treats the statement as serious - not one horse laugh!

Indeed Arnold is trying to win in CA using the "leadership" bullshit.

We need honest numbers people in politics - but the media always labels them as "shrill, incoherent, numbers people who wouldn't say what they mean, and just demand what they want" if those honest numbers folks use the numbers correctly and honestly and try to justify a break for the poor and a hit on the rich.

Bad numbers - outright lies - and the use of crazy averages when we are trying to talk about 40 million real families - when used by the right get no opinion line from the media - a defacto endorsement.

And I like the media's new rule that if a Dem notes that the GOP is lying - it is by definition not a fact - it is an opinion - and indeed the media must say that it is an opinion. But if the right says the Dems "understate, or lie", the media has no requirement that the writer say the GOP comment is an opinion and here is the other side.

[pnb]

5. You're right to an extent

What I put there certainly does not tell the whole story and I didn't intend it to. My point was that the original post didn't tell the whole story either.

[Sentath]

6. Uhmm..

43850/5.15 = 8514.563107 (dollars/year divided by dollars/hour = hours/year)

8514.563107/365.25 = 23.3116033 (hours/year divided by days/year = hours/day)

OR

43850/6.65 = 6593.984962 (dollars/year divided by dollars/hour = hours/year)

6593.984962/365.25 = 18.05334692 (hours/year divided by days/year = hours/day)

no vacations
no holidays
no sabbath
no sick days
no weekends
no