Low-Wage Worker
A Low-Wage Worker is a worker who works at a low wage job.
- Context:
- They can (often) be a Low-Skill Worker.
- They can (sometimes) be a (starving) Artist.
- They can (typically) earn well below (~50%) the wage of a Median-Wage Worker.
- They can range from being a Working-Poor Worker to being a …
- Example(s):
- Counter-Example(s):
- See: Low-Income Household.
References
2014
- (Boak, 2014) ⇒ Josh Boak. (2014). “Low-wage workers struggle to find middle-pay jobs." Associated Press. March 12, 2014
- QUOTE: … One such category includes bookkeepers and executive secretaries, with average wages of $16.54 an hour, according to the Labor Department. Since the mid-1980s, the economy has shed these middle-income jobs — a trend that's become more pronounced with the recoveries that have followed each subsequent recession, according to research by Henry Siu, an economist at the University of British Columbia, and Duke University economist Nir Jaimovich. …
… That said, the data show why it's harder now for workers to rise into higher-paying fields despite an economic recovery now nearly 5 years old. About 1.9 million office and administrative support jobs were lost to the Great Recession, according to government data. That includes 714,370 executive secretaries with annual incomes averaging $50,220. And 252,240 fewer bookkeepers with average incomes of $36,640. By comparison, the number of lower-wage jobs increased: The Labor Department says restaurants added 777,800 jobs since the recession began, general merchandise stores 345,600. …
… "You see adults moving into these relatively generic services (jobs) that don't require expertise, just dexterity, attention and showing up," said MIT economist David Autor. "You want people to be in jobs that have good trajectories. I can imagine you only get so efficient as a checkout clerk or a stocker."
- QUOTE: … One such category includes bookkeepers and executive secretaries, with average wages of $16.54 an hour, according to the Labor Department. Since the mid-1980s, the economy has shed these middle-income jobs — a trend that's become more pronounced with the recoveries that have followed each subsequent recession, according to research by Henry Siu, an economist at the University of British Columbia, and Duke University economist Nir Jaimovich. …
- (Levy & Murnane, 2014a) ⇒ Frank Levy, and Richard J. Murnane. (2014). “Dancing with Robots: Human Skills for Computerized Work.” In: Third Way.
- QUOTE: … it is a safe bet that the human labor market will center on three kinds of work: solving unstructured problems, working with new information, and carrying out non-routine manual tasks. The rest will be done by computers and low wage workers abroad. ...
2013
- (Yen, 2013-09-16) ⇒ Hope Yen. (2013). “Gap in U.S. unemployment rates between rich and poor continues to widen.” In: The Associated Press, Sep. 16, 2013.
- QUOTE: Economists call this a “bumping down” or “crowding out” in the labor market, a domino effect that pushes out lower-income workers, pushes median income downward and contributes to income inequality. Because many mid-skill jobs are being lost to globalization and automation, recent U.S. growth in low-wage jobs has not come fast enough to absorb displaced workers at the bottom. … Low-wage workers are now older and better educated than ever, with especially large jumps in those with at least some college-level training.
"The people at the bottom are going to be continually squeezed, and I don't see this ending anytime soon," said Harvard economist Richard Freeman. "If the economy were growing enough or unions were stronger, it would be possible for the less educated to do better and for the lower income to improve. But in our current world, where we are still adjusting to globalization, that is not very likely to happen."
- QUOTE: Economists call this a “bumping down” or “crowding out” in the labor market, a domino effect that pushes out lower-income workers, pushes median income downward and contributes to income inequality. Because many mid-skill jobs are being lost to globalization and automation, recent U.S. growth in low-wage jobs has not come fast enough to absorb displaced workers at the bottom. … Low-wage workers are now older and better educated than ever, with especially large jumps in those with at least some college-level training.