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| A Good Job is Hard to Find - - "Most families in the United States earn the majority of their income through work. To address the hardships gap, we must begin by looking at whether jobs are providing sufficient wages and benefits for families to bridge the gaps. Unfortunately, the U.S. labor market creates millions of jobs that cannot support a family. In what follows, we define a “bad job” as one that pays less than the median wage in 1979 (adjusted for inflation), and has neither employer-sponsored health insurance nor a retirement plan. By this definition, in 2005, almost a quarter (22.1 percent) of Americans were in bad jobs. Even worse, despite substantial economic growth since the end of the 1970s, the share of bad jobs in the U.S. economy has remained essentially unchanged for over a quarter century. Just under one-third of U.S. jobs are good jobs, offering decent pay (more than the 1979 median wage) and employer-sponsored health insurance and a retirement plan. In 2005, 30.1 percent of American workers had a job that met all three criteria, about the same share as in 1979. Figure 3A shows the share of jobs that are bad jobs in BTG states (the 10 states covered by the report) averaged over the three years from 2003 to 2005. About one-half of all jobs are neither good nor bad. These jobs have either one or two of the elements of a good job, but not all three." - - from Page 16 of BRIDGING THE GAPS: A Picture of How Work Supports Work in Ten States |
Nearly 41 million people in working families cannot afford basics like health care, housing, or child care, even with public work supports
Low wages, inadequate benefits, and limited work supports leave one-in-five people (nearly 41 million) in American working families struggling to make ends meet. According to a study released on Wednesday by the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, and the Center for Social Policy at the University of Massachusetts in Boston.
According to the report, many workers are in jobs that do not provide health insurance or enough earnings to cover basic expenditures but earn too much to qualify for work supports such as Medicaid and Food Stamps.
While common to higher-wage workers, employment-based benefits, like health insurance, retirement plans, and paid time off, are not available to most low- and many moderate-wage workers. Public work supports, however, can help fill in these gaps.
"We no longer live in a world where having a job means you're automatically able to make ends meet," according to Heather Boushey, co-author of the report. "Our work support policies need to be updated to support the millions of families with earners in bad jobs."
After examining federal and state policies across nine states and the District of Columbia, the researchers found that families who were able to take advantage of government-provided work supports were able to close nearly half (44 percent) of the gap between their earnings and a safe and decent standard of living.
Across the same states, however, more than one-in-five of those living in low-income, but working families, were not eligible for any government-provided work supports.
The findings come from an in-depth examination of eligibility for six work supports-child care assistance, Earned Income Tax Credit, Food Stamps, housing assistance (public housing and Section 8), Medicaid/State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families—and who uses them.
The study analyzed federal and state policies in Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Washington, and the District of Columbia. A low-income family has income below a basic family budget, which is equal to the cost of purchasing a safe and decent standard of living at market prices within the family's locality. The family types included are households comprised of one or two adults and zero to three children under the age of 13. These family types make up approximately 75 percent of the US population.
This new data is being released as Congress tries to expand SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) to families with income above 200% of the poverty threshold. The data released on Wednesday, show that the current eligibility rules leave over half of low-income families ineligible for this work support.
"I don't want the federal government making decisions for doctors and customers," President Bush said last week when he vetoed a measure to increase the entitlement.
"These findings suggest that universal heath care reform would make a significant impact in the budgets of millions of Americans," said Randy Albelda, co-author of the report. "And given the recent focus on health care by the 2008 presidential candidates, there is a great opportunity to help bridge the gaps for these families."
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