Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
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/
6 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
