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America’s new working poor — in manufacturing
Originally published May 11, 2016 at 10:06 am
Think only fast-food workers are stuck in low-wage jobs and forced to get food stamps? Now a stunning number of manufacturing jobs pay poorly, too. Taxpayers subsidize company profits.
Think manufacturing jobs and you think of Boeing’s workforce in the Puget Sound region: well paid, good benefits, union representation, the bedrock of the old American middle class.
But a new report from researchers at the University of California at Berkeley indicates this is increasingly the outlier in U.S. manufacturing. It also raises questions about returning manufacturing jobs to the United States as a simple fix for rising income inequality.
The report found that from 2009 to 2013, the federal and state governments spent $10.2 billion annually on social safety net programs for workers and their families in frontline factory jobs.
These include food stamps (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP),basic household income assistance (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF), Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the Federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The study was first reported in the Washington Post.
The primary cause: low wages.
Think manufacturing jobs and you think of Boeing’s workforce in the Puget Sound region: well paid, good benefits, union representation, the bedrock of the old American middle class.
But a new report from researchers at the University of California at Berkeley indicates this is increasingly the outlier in U.S. manufacturing. It also raises questions about returning manufacturing jobs to the United States as a simple fix for rising income inequality.
The report found that from 2009 to 2013, the federal and state governments spent $10.2 billion annually on social safety net programs for workers and their families in frontline factory jobs.
These include food stamps (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP),basic household income assistance (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF), Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the Federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The study was first reported in the Washington Post.
The primary cause: low wages.
Link: http://www.seattletimes.com/business/economy/americas-new-working-poor-in-manufacturing/
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