THE GREASE
TRAP
or less is poor. By that standard,
someone who works full time
but earns no more than $10.60
an hour can be considered working poor, a classification that
describes about a quarter of the
U.S. population. The working
poor cook burgers, deliver pizzas,
fold shirts, help people pick out
shoes, cut grass, answer phones,
move boxes in warehouses, organize items on shelves and take
care of children and the elderly.
Contrary to the outdated image
of the neighborhood kid hustling
for “pin money” at the local McDonald’s, low-wage workers are
mostly adults, not teenagers. Few
receive health insurance or other
employee benefits, and the government often subsidizes their
wages, providing them with food
stamps and other entitlements.
During the course of the downturn now known as the Great Recession, which saw the official
unemployment rate peak at 10
percent, the economy lost more
than 8 million jobs. Sixty percent
of those jobs paid between about
$14 and $21, according to the National Employment Law Project.
In the 46 months since the official end of the recession, the economy has added more than 4.6 mil-
HUFFINGTON
05.12.13
lion jobs, while the unemployment
rate has dropped to 7.6 percent.
But as of last summer, around 60
percent of those new jobs paid
about $14 per hour or less.
In other words, since the recession officially ended, lower-wage
jobs have grown nearly three times
faster than jobs that pay more.
While more and more Americans try to get by on these wages,
many of the major employers of
low-wage workers are reaping big
profits. Between 2007 and 2011,
the corporation that owns KFC
saw its profits rise by 45 percent.
McDonald’s had an even better
run, posting a 130 percent profit
surge in the same period.
For decades, many of these corporations have justified their wages by portraying their job offerings
as stepping stones to the middle
class. But labor economists and
other scholars have often questioned the validity of that premise, and some argue that it’s more
hollow now than ever.
In recent months, the plight of
low-wage workers has prompted
calls for reform from a number of
prominent economists and political leaders, including the president. In his State of the Union
speech in February, President
Barack Obama proposed raising
the federal minimum wage from
$7.25 an hour to $9.