The Poor Who HAVE Jobs
Bluestone, Barry
LIBERAL ANALYSTS of the economy leapfrog from one plan for abolishing poverty to another. Currently, the spotlight beams on manpower training and development as the answer to the misery of the...
...The high profits of the titans of industry present a choice target for union wage demands when bargaining sessions open...
...Compared with the standard of living in the underdeveloped countries of the world, the American "poor" fare quite well, and indeed...
...Of -these low-wage workers, 2.1 million were family breadwinners, and an additional 1.1 million were single individuals...
...productivity gains, paying for this by, cutting into monopoly profits or by boosting the price of their products...
...Furthermore, unions have to some extent contributed to creating inflation...
...4) The raising of wages to adequate levels in low-wage industries will necessarily entail cutbacks in employment, sometimes drastic cutbacks...
...or another, have failed to provide a living wage for many of their employees...
...Whereas Negro women account for one out of eight working women, they comprise one out of six women in low-wage occupations...
...velopment is not a sufficient answer for the problems of millions of poor people...
...17 Lack of mobility of the working poor accounts for a good measure of the continuing poverty of low-wage industry workers...
...In addition, 30 per cent of all unrelated individuals earned a working-poor anuual income...
...The real incomes of those working in the unorganized, unprotected sectors suffer much more...
...Agriculture shows the highest incidennce of poverty in America, but other sectors of the economy account for the substantial majority of employed poor...
...Unlike unemployment, the problem of the working poor, perhaps because it seems less dramatic, is less documented and their plight is less understood...
...If an industry cannot pay an adequate wage, it should perhaps not be permitted to survive at the cost of maintaining its workers at a poverty level...
...Of the 29 service-, worker occupations, 21 fall into -the low-wage'category, but the educational les l of workers in 15 of these 21 either exceeds or is not more', than one-half year below the 9.7 Year median educational 'level'for'all service employees.1e Consequently, we can hardly characterize the working poor as illiterate, unschooled, or for- that matter, educationally inferior t6 workers...
...BARRY BLUESTONE many jobs in high-wage industries, in retail trade, and in personal service...
...21 per cent were in miscellaneous other nonagricultural employment...
...6 Cummings, op, cit., p. 828...
...Unions exist in many low-wage industries, but they are beset by great difficulties...
...SEx—Women are particularly likely to have low-wage jobs...
...While the pro 19 Manpower Report of the President, 1967, Tables C-3 and C-6, pp...
...In 20 Delehanty, and Evans, op...
...profit rates are smaller...
...To a lesser extent, the working poor are scattered through many industries where their concentration is smaller but their conditions are just as intolerable...
...Nine out of ten such' families were headed by men.4 This does not account for those who attempted to work full-time during the year but were laid off because of 'a slack in their occupations...
...Isolating these industries from all others provides some insight into the characteristics of low-wage firms...
...Agility and speed on a repetitious operation are not necessarily the byproducts of school attendance...
...To solve the real problem of poverty in America, that of an inequitable income distribution, will take much more far-reaching legislation...
...of a year.•in'1963, the median years , bt 'school completed being" 9.6 for all operatives...
...Yet 90 per cent of all families among the working poor are headed by men...
...or - discrimination...
...Yet we have little indication of what produces low-wage jobs in the first place...
...Whereas one sector has expanded rapidly, providing adequate wages and decent working conditions for its workers, another sector has fallen well behind...
...12-13...
...ployed indigents are concentrated in a number of industries which, for one reason...
...POVERTY is -not easily defined, even in quantitative terms...
...Nevertheless, absolutes' productivity in the low-wage sectors appears well below_ that in the nonlowwage sector.2o The low absolute productivity of labor in low-wage industry, no matter whether the cause is too little complementary capital or inefficient management, partly explains the low level of wages in the . poverty industries...
...5) In the long run we must turn our attention to the whole question of work and its place in society...
...JOBS of family needs allowing for a minimal "economy" diet, housing, clothing, and other bare necessities...
...We now have a pretty good idea of who is most likely doomed to poverty employment— Negroes, women, the immobile, and those who live in the South...
...Free to press for higher wages without excessive fear of eliminating jobs by pricing their firm's product above unorganized competition, the union can demand for its members their share of productivity and productivity gains...
...Delehanty and'Evans found that, among operative occupations in manufacturing industry, the difference in educational attainment between most workers in '.low-wage' groups and those in above povertyline • wage operations stood at less than , - six: tenths...
...Studies have generally shown the amount of capital in low-wage industries to be relatively smaller than in the high-wage industries...
...There is little trace of low-wage employment in mining and construction, transportation and public utilities, wholesale trade, and finance...
...cit., p. 828...
...In - the worst of times, the fear of losing their pittance of , a wage haunts them...
...Furthermore, the econpniic climate may be such that industries in high-wage areas have few jobs open for newcomers and refuse to expand employment because of fixed wage floors...
...1 The poverty line varies with family size and geographical -location...
...LABOR MOBILITY—One would -expect that 'workers in low-wage occupations and indus' tries would be'eager to seek improvement of their lot by moving to high-wage areas of the 'country...
...stroy a comparatively inefficient domestic industry only because of restrictive tariffs...
...This movement, however, is" not necessarily" associated with poor workers' in search of better wages...
...3) Minimum-wage legislation must continue to be broadened and the floor raised...
...The unionized sector, due to strong collective bargaining and cost of living arrangements, is partly protected against inflation...
...There is nothing inherent in the nature of oligopolistic industrial giants which explains their actual granting of higher wages...
...The end result of such a program will be to reduce the repressiveness of the economic environment...
...In oligopolistic industries, productivity has been rising fairly steadily and the result, at least in part, has been a rising, of wages and profits, often at a higher growth rate than that of productivity...
...When low-wage manufacturing industries are investigated, . tliey usually are found to possess productivity growth rates consistent with the gains in the rest of manufacturing...
...In dealing 'with the working poor it is necessary to examine the 'level of their wages not only in absolute terms (i.e., at a $3,000 standard), but also relative to the general wage distribtition or wage level in"industry...
...Workers should not suffer for the inefficient operation of these sectors or for the reduction in employment as they are forced from the market...
...PUBLIC VISIBILITY—When General Motors announces net profits in excess of 20 per cent per year, employs over 400,000 workers, and controls prices in a $20 billion-plus industry, the nation cannot help but take notice...
...The rest of the 8.5 million were in families- with total income above the poverty line: others in the family helped to provide a livelihood...
...But calculatedin this manner (or in any other finite way, for that matter), the poverty line should :not betaken seriously...
...Hence, attention must be focused on the low-wage industries themselves in order to understand the existence of poverty income jobs and the root causes of the working poor...
...8 Laurie D. Cummings, "The Employed Poor: Their Characteristics and Occupations...
...24 AFL-CIO, "The Low-Paid Worker," American Federationist, August 1964...
...The small "invisible" firm, on the other hand, often avoids the sharp eye of the government inspector and does not arouse public opinion...
...It should help us to understand the economic and social forces making for the BARRY BLUESTONE persistence of low-wage employment within deed, _ firms maintaining influence in labor an affluent society...
...UTILIZATION OF CAPITAL — Where each worker has a great deal of machinery at his command, output per man will be large and the wage bill will be a relatively small fraction of total costs incurred by the producer...
...To a great extent, the low-wage sector represents the result of a "repressive economic environment...
...WHEREVER the market approaches its theoretical best—in the firms furthest from monopoly and closest to laissez-faire—it cannot supply jobs at wages adequate to feed a man's family...
...Yet it should be clear that for many of the working poor (and many of the unemployed) the problem is not so much lack of preparation but the inability of a sector of the economy to furnish an adequate wage...
...Professionals, on .the average, are better, educated than ,clerical workers and accordingly receive...
...As a segment of the indigent of America, the number who work full-time is substantial...
...high percentage of full-time Negro working poor, and in the extremely high proportion of low-wage jobs held by Negro men and women...
...In the low-wage sector, however, notably in textiles, apparel, watches and clocks, foreign competition has been fierce and, in some cases, has failed to de •s Howard M. Levinson, -Unionism, Concentration, and Wage Changes: Toward a Unified Theory," Determining Forces in Collective Wage Bargaining, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1967...
...Furthermore, the repressive environment stymies union organization and bargaining for higher wages...
...the living standard of the average impoverished citizen of the 1960's surpasses that of his' 'counterpart in the Iast century...
...Unions in America have a long-standing debt to the unorganized...
...A permissive economic environment entails capital-intensive production possibilities, the ability to set prices based on product demand, high public visibility, low firm entry, and opportunities for strong unions...
...While some refuse to move to higher-wage industries because of ties to family and region, many others cannot move because they lack means.' For many, movement to another area appears risky, especially if it means forfeiture of an already existing full-time job, even if it is...
...Who are the working poor and why have particular individuals been doomed to poverty jobs...
...Yet the problem is highly complex, for it is not simply the result of any one major cause—sickness, illiteracy, lack of jobs...
...Who are The Working Poor...
...higher incomes: Foremen and craftsmen are generally- more educated than operatives and laborers and again,, the difference is reflected in higber,earnings'"far the more educated...
...This section of the law has been most effective in the South...
...For Negro men the situation is much worse...
...In any case, wherever mobility of the working poor is restricted, the opportunity for escaping poverty is reduced...
...Within occupational categories, the i lationship between educations and wage'"rata is not, however, so clear, Operatives in the.higii wage industries appear to have almost . the •same educational' histories as' many of their low-wage ginups and those in above povertyineohies'eithet+: iil °the"same industry...
...In one form, it is computed on the basis 1 Office of Economic Opportunity, Dimensions of Poverty, December 1965, p. 8. THE POOR WHO HAVE...
...THE "POO'R' WHO HAVE JOBS pears high...
...PRODUCTIVITY OF LOW-WAGE 'INDUSTRIES— When the productivity of a firm increases, wages can presumably be raised, profits increased, and prices lowered—or a combination of the three can occur...
...Where an industry is so established that entry is free and open to new firms, we can expect weak unions and most probably low wages...
...Over this same period average wages rose only 88 per cent in textile-mill products, 63 per cent in apparel, 87 per cent in leather 'products, 100 per cent in furniture manufacturing, and 108 per cent in • lumber and wood products...
...Hence any worker who earned less than $1:60 an hour in 1966 is considered poor since the average wage for all manufacturing workers in that year was $2.71...
...A "character sketch" of the low-wage industries permits some insight into the dynamics of the low-wage sector of the economy...
...18 (See opposite page...
...Yet, even' mobility does not necessarily indicate escape from poverty...
...When one considers only male heads of households, however, the story changes drastically...
...UNIONIZATION—Low-wage industry is not as highly unionized as high-wage manufacturing...
...14 They also found that the six major poverty wage clerical occupations divide into three equal groups with educational levels 'which bracket the-over-all median...
...In the .best of times, with the ecdnomy booming, they can hope for -full work^ weeks and for wage- increases which may keep pace with inflation...
...Rather, oligopoly provides what has been called a "permissive economic environment" within which other forces can more easily work for higher wages tm Needless to say, such an economic climate is nonexistent in the low-wage sector...
...In 1964, in almost one-fifth of these male-headed households where the wife was present, the wife also worked at least part-time...
...In retail trade, where the growth of employ 18 The 60 per cent criterion is only used as a rough standard of poverty employment as we stick to our belief that any finite poverty standard should not be taken literally...
...15 per cent were in retail trade...
...9 per cent were in construction...
...For identical levels of education, the Negro male can expect to earn only about 60 per cent of the income of his white counterpart.'" Although some progress has recently been made toward eliminating racial discrimination in hiring practices and in internal firm mobility, discrimination remains pervasive...
...We can only hope that the complacency of the trade union movement will be shattered, and that it will once again take on the challenge of organizing the unorganized and aid in the establishment of new independent militant unions...
...10 per cent were in personal services...
...Consequently unions, once established, are relatively secure from the com.petion forced on them by an unorganized sector in the industry...
...Not only are these millions of workers impoverished today, but they are losing ground relative to all other= workers...
...In terms of occupation, the working poor are operatives, service workers, laborers, and farmers...
...and thereby accumulate higher profits...
...THE POOR WHO HAVE JOBS per se does not guarantee a higher wage scale, for there is nothing inherent in the size of a firm or the absence of product market competition which ensures high wages...
...Other criteria also would isolate the same set of industries as low-wage...
...in eomparable occupations in'high-'wage industries...
...Productivity is well below that of all industry...
...Data from Carl Kaysen's . studies indicate that the degree of competitiveness among the low-wage industries is' greater than that for the rest of manufacturing, and the same generally holds, probably to a greater extent, for retail trade and services, both in the low-wage sectors...
...Based on a relative income standard of 60 per cent of the average earnings in all manufacturing, the following partial listing of low-wage industries gives some idea of where the working poor can be found...
...Eventually a job must not be judged on its efficiency alone, but on its ability to enhance man's dignity and control over his environment...
...cit., pp...
...job, skill, the two are not perfectly interchangeable...
...They earned an average of $2,791 for a full year's work, averaging 327 days per year...
...meat was greatest, average wages grew by only 112 per cent, well below the increase in high-wage industries 19 A "dual economy" has developed in America...
...Em 17 Ibid., p. 44...
...Iii some lowwwage 'industries where the local labor 'market is ciomiriated by one company, exploitation of this ,kind no doubt is practiced...
...But the productivity gains in low-wage industry are not reflected in the relative wage-rate changes...
...NevertheIess, it appears likely that the conclusion regarding...
...If we are fully to understand why wages in some industries are high and in others low, it is necessary to discuss unionization...
...In many ways, the labor movement itself is responsible for the persistence of the unorganized sector...
...To . understand low-wage employment- means to understand the dynamics of product and labor-market forces which generate the structure...
...Similarly, laws are so drawn as to exclude many workers in the low-wage sector...
...But it cannot attack the root causes of low-wage jobs which, given their existence, will inevitably be filled by those least able to take advantage of the affluent sector of the economy...
...Industries not covered todate by such legislation must be included and the minimum raised to at least $2.00 per hour immediately and $2.50 over the next few years...
...The situation of workers in -these industries is not improving...
...competition flourishes, and the ability of many low-wage industries to pay adequate wages without drastically cutting employment is impaired...
...24 Ironically, the minimum-wage law covers all auto, steel, rubber, and aluminum workers where the average wage is over twice the minimum and literally no one earns below one and a half times the legal minimum wage...
...When cigar prices rise, smokers switch to pipes and cigarettes...
...located possibly in a different region of the country) or in different 'industries...
...PROFITS—Periodically, it is suggested that poverty wages are the result of employee "exploitation" by profit-grubbing firms...
...prices rather than being subjected to 'the forces of' The market...
...Low-Wage Industries THE WORKING POOR, as expected, are not spread evenly throughout industries...
...Similarly, correlation between broad occupational groups and education ap 11 Cummings, op...
...to be precise, $3,130 in 1964...
...In 1963, '8.5 'million people in the United States worked throughout the year at fulltime jobs yet earned less than $3,000 for their effort.2 They comprised nearly one-fifth of the total full-time employed labor force in that year...
...This accounts for the disparity between productivity and wage gains in the lowwage sector compared to the better paying industries...
...The hypothesis here is that the uneducated and unskilledpoor have been left behind in a rapidly advancing and automated - technology and hence have failed to compete successfully in the newly emerging job market...
...While a good number live in the "pockets of poverty" of the Ozark Plateau, the Down East section of the eastern coastline, and the cutover region of the Upper Great Lakes,' a, still greater number are crowded into the industrial ghettos of the i`iortheris and West (,Vast cities...
...Without national support for union organizing, those regions where unionization is needed most will fare the worst...
...cii., p. 9. productivity...
...We must create jobs which not only give a man and his family a fair share in the economic pie, but which call upon man's creativity...
...The trials of poverty indeed are oppressive for the working poor...
...Although women comprise only one-third of the labor force, they account for more than one-half of all persons with incomes below $3,000...
...Consequently, the low-wage firm has little recourse to a price increase as a means of boosting wages or profit margins, for that matter...
...And to understand the individuals who are America's working poor—to know their educational-, familial, and historical characteristics-a-is not sufficient basis for explaining the persistence of low-wage employment...
...Still, for some families with two wage earners, the sum total of their effort failed to raise the family income above the poverty threshold.13 EDUCATION—Income correlates highly with education...
...cit., p. 831...
...This accounts for the lower average productivity in low-wage sectors and possibly for the growing gap in relative incomes between the average worker and the working poor...
...Yet, in -general, ,.the evidence points to' low-profit margins' in the bulk of low-wage industry...
...AGE—One might expect to find the working poor clustered in the younger and older age groups—those under 25 and over 55—for these are the age groups with the lowest incomes...
...markets can artificially reduce wages below the return due to workers based on their DEMAND FOR LABOR IN LOW-WAGE INDUSTRY —Wages in industries with increasing demand for labor are generally expected to increase at a faster pace...
...But this is not so...
...It is in these industries that the bulk of the working poor are found...
...Government statistics -have traditionally placed the poverty "line" at around $3,000 a year for a family -of four...
...Indeed that year, in the majprity of poor families at least one person was working either part-time or full-time the year around . 3 The men and women (family heads) who worked full-time all year in 1964 and yet received a poverty wage were the parents of a full two-fifths of the nation's poor children...
...Discrimination and lesser educational opportunity, as manifestations of racism, result in high unemployment rates for Negroes, in the 7 Cummings, op...
...explain why a janitor in one industry 'fares ' Ib much better than 'one in the low-wage sector...
...The working poor are the product of a confrontation between individuals with little opportunity, and economic markets with little realized -potential...
...PRODUCT DEMAND--There is little data on the demand for various products, but it can be assumed that the demand for many lowwage industry commodities is highly volatile with respect to price...
...s Mollie Orshansky, "Counting the Poor: Another Look at the Poverty Profile," in L. Ferman, J. Kornbluh, and A. Haber, eds., Poverty in America, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1965, p. 70...
...5 U.S...
...In the low-wage sector, we have found conditions nearly opposite to those existing in the high-wage industrial sector...
...Where industries are marked by easy entry, intense competition, highly volatile product demand, low profits, and low productivity, we can be assured of two things: if there is a union at all, it is bound to be ineffective, and there will surely be large numbers of working poor...
...The average hourly earnings in construction rose by 149 per cent between 1947 and 1966, 122 per cent in all manufacturing, and 133 per cent in durable manufacturing...
...If it will mobilize its resources, the labor movement is in the position to pay that debt, a debt which it has so far failed fully to recognize...
...Whether -the economy comes up- heads or tails, the working poor lose...
...16 Ibid., p. 33...
...a , low-wage job...
...4 Ibid...
...In 1963...
...Although most hired farm workers were not employed full-time in 1965, 400,000 were counted as such...
...education and Iow-wage occupations can be extended to job skills, There is little reason to believe that an assembler, its , the high-wage auto industry is more skilled, than the operative, in a Southern sawmill or textile plant...
...Nonetheless, a highly concentrated industry 21 Ibid., p. 13...
...Manpower retraining is needed for those who can benefit by progressing to better paying occupations...
...E'dtication can explain why engineers earn more than janitors...
...10 Tom Kahn, `The Economics of Equality," New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1964...
...Yet, in this 'reg'urd, empirical evidence regarding low-wage industry appears equivocal...
...less capital is utilized in production...
...To some extent empirical studies support this expectation, for there is a close -relationship between median income levels and interstate migration patterns...
...Department of Labor, Manpower Report of the President, 1967, p. 108...
...A,study by 'Delehanty and Evans demonstrates -tliat while' the median - profit margin for all riianuf during was 7.33 per cent, it was 5.75,,per ,cent for an isolated set of low-wage industries 2' Thus :the working poor are !being exploited by the economy as a whole rather than by the individual firms employing them...
...By and large, the working poor are of prime age...
...7 Yet roughly equal percentages of white and nonwhite poor are full-time workers...
...It thus becomes necessary to assure all those who have worked and would work if jobs were available at a guaranteed minimum income...
...Such wages will tend to be higher than where production is labor-intensive...
...CONCENTRATION ANb 'COMPETITION — The degree of market cgnnentration in an industry or market, competoa de ermines the ability of a firm to determine...
...portion of low-wage workers may be falling because of relatively declining employment in the low-wage sector, those left behind are worse off-and they still number in the millions...
...Only 56 per cent worked at all that year and no more than a third were full-time workers.° For the labor force as a whole, a disproportionately large number of Negroes are in low-wage jobs, but Negro women fare relatively better than their male counterparts...
...Only recently has foreign competition in the heavy-goods industry begun to dent domestic sales and prices in the high-wage sector...
...BARRY BLUESTONE Where an industry is inhabited by a few massive price-setting, highly mechanized, noncompetitive, publicly visible, and highly profitable firms, entry of new firms is indeed quite rare...
...Poverty employment is found throughout the manufacturing sector (especially in nondurable goods production), in retail trade, and in service industries...
...What the 60 per cent standard means is that all workers earning under 60 per cent of the average wage in manufacturing as a whole are counted as working poor...
...Cam - bridge: Harvard University Press, 1959...
...By raising wages, some unions have decreased employment in their industries...
...Recent discussions of negative income tax proposals to redistribute income must be seen as crucial to the whole matter of the working poor and poverty in America...
...but educational level alone cannot...
...The problem of poverty for at least a great many, often overlooked' by those who peer into - crystal balls instead of onto ghetto streets, is not so simple as the failure of the unskilled to meet the new requirements of America's supertechnological society...
...But the fact -is that the Triple Revolution theorists were wrong...
...xa Ibid., p. 32...
...Monthly Labor Review, July 1965, p. 828...
...Rather than contributing to higher , wages, productivity increases are either absorbed as higher profits or are passed on in the form of lower prices due to stiff competion...
...12 This -distribution compares with the nonagricultural civilian labor force as a whole...
...The working poor made up then, and continue to make up, a sizable fraction of the total labor force...
...Yet for the white male family earner the percentages were' much smaller...
...2) The trade union movement must take a major initiative in eradicating poverty wage scales...
...While productivity advances in low-wage industries have kept pace or in some cases exceeded the rest' of industry, wages and profits have not risen' as gthckly because of intense price competition...
...For those who desire work, the government must act as an employer of last resort...
...While a number of low-wage industries have had steadily declining employment consistent with slow 'rather than rapid wage advance, others have had relatively high employment }growth rates...
...While this will assure those working in any industry an above-poverty-line income, it will still leave many with inadequate incomes...
...If prices are forced up, demand is apt to fall...
...Sales workers, clerical employees, and private household workers make up another 12 per cent...
...for family heads the percentage was even larger, with over three-fourths in the prime age group...
...of wages and jobs in the nation...
...Educational requirements pose another barrier for some of the employed poor who possess the will to advance to higher wage areas but lack the educational background to change occupations...
...RACE—Approximately one-third of workingpoor families are Negro...
...250, 253...
...But highly coml)etiti firms are rarely in such a position...
...than those where labor demand has slackened...
...It is nonsense to assume that once a family's income exceeds the poverty line by a few dollars it is out of the woods...
...Although low^wage industries 'have greater labor quit-rates than industries which pay BARRY BLUESTONE higher wages, the high mobility of persons in low-wage jobs is not solely a reflection of job improvement: studies by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that only roughly one-third of job changes by low-wage workers resulted in improved wages...
...Thus, the inadequate incomes of most of the working poor are not of their own making...
...The` remaining 70 per cent of employed poor families owed their meager livelihood to urban occupations and industries: 6 15 per cent were in manufacturing...
...1) Congress must act to repeal Section 14b of the Taft-Hartley Act in order to eliminate the legally sanctioned open shop that plagues union organization...
...Consequently, low wages and poor working conditions have a much better chance to persist in the industries of the working poor...
...The explanation that people are paid low wages because they are inherently less productive and therefore worth only a low wage fails under too many diverse circumstances to be of value as a general theory of low-wage employment...
...In some cases, , oliggpolistic firms may be forced to raise wages even above...
...when domestic textile prices rise, fashions turn to imported fabrics...
...12 Orshansky, "More about the Poor in 1964," p. 8. 13 Dawn Wachte, The Working Poor, Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, University of Michigan and Wayne State University, mimeographed, 1967...
...Yet compared with today's average factory worker, let alone the professionals and entrepreneurs, the employed poor share very little of the total economic product...
...Of all full-time working family heads, 6.9 per cent earned a poverty wage...
...In 1964, over half of all unrelated individuals among the working poor were between 25 and 54...
...Furthermore, resistence to wage increases will be less in the capital-intensive industry, since wages make up such a small part of total operating costs...
...Rather, geographical mobility rates are associated with education, age, and race...
...Those displaced from the highwage industries are subsequently added to the THE POOR WHO HAVE JOBS pool of those seeking employment, and consequently wages in the unorganized sector are forced down due to the added competition for remaining jobs...
...Otherwise, inefficient industries or individual firms within an industry should be forced to meet minimum standards for wages and working conditions or leave the market...
...THE POOR WHO HAVE JOBS Low-Wage Industries in the 1960's Average Hourly Low-wage Earnings (for all (average industry workers in industry) percentages) Southern Sawmills and Planing Mills $1.25 88.2 Nursing Homes and Related Facilities 1.19 86.3 Work Clothing 1.24 77.1 Children's Hosiery Mills 1.33 76.9 Men's and Boys' Shirts 1.26 75.5 Laundries and Cleaning Services 1.26 75.4 Men's Hosiery Mills 1.37 71.7 Synthetic Textiles 1.57 55.5 Cigar Manufacturing 1.39 55.4 Cotton Textiles 1.53 54.5 Wood Household Furniture 1.57 50.8 Footwear 1.64 49.3 Women's Hosiery Mills 1.55 50.0 Fertilizer Manufacture 1.67 41.7 Hospitals 1.86 41.2 Candy and Other Confectionery 1.87 34.2 Brick and Structural Clay Tile 1.91 33.9 Wool Textiles 1.59 32.7 Structural Clay Products 2.08 20.8 Miscellaneous Plastic Products 1.95 19.9 Men's and Boys' Suits and Coats 2.12 19.5 Textile Dyeing and Finishing 1.96 16.7 Retail Trade Limited Price Variety Stores 1.31 87.9 Eating and Drinking Places 1.14 79.4 Hotels and Motels 1.17 76.1 Drug and Proprietory Stores 1.56 71.3 Gasoline Service Stations 1.52 66.7 Apparel and Accessory Stores 1.70 597 Department Stores 1.75 59.6 Miscellaneous Retail Stores 1.75 58.0 Retail Food Stores 1.91 47.6 Building Equipment and Hardware Dealers 1.98 39.4 Furniture, Furnishings, and Appliances 2.10 38.4 Motor Vehicle Dealers 2.40 28.7 Source: Industry Wage Surveys, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor (1961-1966...
...We must also change our economic system which continues to propel a poverty-wage sector right into the decade of the 70's...
...For meager reward they spend nearly half of their waking hours at jobs often arduous, numbingly repetitious, and devoid of opportunity for occupational mobility...
...In general, the skill ' tequirements for working-poor jobs, although below average, are 'the same as those for 2 Mollie Orshansky, "More about the , Poor in 1964," Social Security Bulletin, May 1966, p. 5...
...Manpower training , and de 14 George E. Delehanty and Robert Evans, Jr., "Low-Wage Employment: An Inventory and an Assessment," Northwestern University, mimeographed, no date, p. 33...
...In 1963, 73 per cent of male Negro breadwinners in poor families were employed, and more than twofifths of them worked full-time all year long...
...Poverty stereotypes of the ADC mother, the aged, the infirm, the small farmer, the handicapped, the unemployed, the underemployed, and the undereducated often mask the fact that nearly a third of all families living in poverty in 1964 were headed by a person who worked 50-52 weeks a year at a full-time job...
...GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION — The, working poor are located in every state in the union, but the heaviest concentration of employed poor is found_ in the South...
...In 1964 over half of all working poor families and a third of all fairy-employed unrelated individuals' lived in the Southern states...
...whereas they represent but one-twelfth of the nonagricultural male workforce, they hold one out of four low-wage jobs...
...Currently, the spotlight beams on manpower training and development as the answer to the misery of the urban ghetto and the rural wasteland...
...in"general, migration rates are higher for people with more education and in younger age groups...
...In dealing with the millions of working poor it is not enough to consider the problems of individuals—too little schooling, not enough training, inadequate housing and filthy neighborhoods, no hope, and no political power...
...one-fifth of all families in the United - States were counter' as poor, but of these, more than one in four, had a full-time, working breadwinner...
...In the rare instance that such an industry is crucial to the economy, it may be necessary to subsidize it so that it can pay adequate wages without reducing production...
...22 Carl Kaysen and Donald F. Turner, Anti-trust Policy: An Econ1imic and Legal Analysis...
...To eliminate low wages requires a combination of measures sponsored by the government and the labor movement...
...SKILL--Although education usually serves as a proxy for...
...Rather, the problem is that many people with adequate skills are simply not being provided with adequate fibs...
...6 In 1463, of the employed heads of"poor families 30 per cent worked in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries...
...or at least premature in their pronouncement...
...Nevertheless, because of their greater numbers, white workers still predominate in low-wage occupations and industries 11 Race discrimination and lower educational opportunities for Negroes are major factors in the allocation of low-wage jobs, but whites are not automatically exempt from the worst jobs America has to offer...
...Poverty considered in this light must he measured on a relative rather than an absolute scale...
...What Can Be Done THE VOGUE solution to the poverty of those able to work but either employed or lowpaid has been to inject a dose of retraining and subsequently place the individual back into the labor force, now presumably equipped to function in America's high-speed economy...
...Dire predictions of cybernetic joblessness have not been fulfilled, and even -the less radical "structural unemployment" argument ,remains relevant for only the most extremely disadvantaged of the poor...
...As late as 1963, for instance, minimum-wage laws excluded from coverage over 1.5 million restaurant workers, 489,000 hotel and motel employees, over half a million laundry workers, 700,000 hospital workers, over 3 million retail clerks, millions of farmers, and thousands of loggers and agricultural processing workers...
...8 Orshansky, op...
Vol. 15 • September 1968 • No. 5
