Low-wage work force grows 30%
Low-wage workers in Chicago are better educated, older and rely more on that income these days to meet basic needs than 10 years ago.
And there are substantially more of them.
That’s according to a new report released by Chicagobased Women Employed and Action Now Institute that shows nearly one in six lowwage workers here last year held a college degree.
The report, authored by Marc Doussard, assistant professor in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning, defines lowwage workers as those making $12 an hour or less.
The report revealed the share of payroll employees ages 18 to 64 working in lowwage jobs rose from 23.8 percent in 2011 to 31.2 percent last year. That’s a more than 30 percent rise in the proportion of such workers.
Meanwhile the share of households with a low-wage earner that got all income from low-wage earnings rose from 45.7 percent to 56.7 percent.
The report is “compelling evidence that as the number of jobs shrinks, people are forced to chase lower and lower paying jobs,” Doussard said. “I think this is a wake-up call.”
The report showed the percent of low-wage workers 30 and older rose from 54 percent in 2001 to 57.4 percent last year. And last year only 6 percent of such workers were under 20, compared with nearly 11 percent in 2001.
“I think people often think that low-wage workers are teenagers or they’re just in the low-wage labor force for a short time, and then they’ll move on to something else or that perhaps they have very low educational levels,” said Anne Ladky, executive director of Women Employed. “There’s a lot of mythology out there about low-wage workers. We feel it’s important to get the facts out there.”
Amie Crawford and Ricardo Hardin are among Chicagoans struggling in such lowwage jobs.
Crawford worked 35 years as an interior designer, where her salary in recent years was $50,000 a year. She moved to Chicago nearly a year ago after her husband moved here and she thought she’d be able to find a job in her field making a similar salary. But she’s since separated from her husband, and after months of looking for work, she was only able to land a job making $8.25 an hour at a quick-service restaurant in the Loop.
“The biggest impact it’s having is I’m having to draw from my retirement savings to make ends meet on a no-frills budget,” and that’s something that she can’t do indefinitely, said Crawford. “If my situation doesn’t change, I’ll have to move and maybe live with my sister. The prospects aren’t good if something doesn’t change.”
Hardin, who holds a bach- elor’s degree in business management and an associate’s in criminal justice, has only been able to land a job as a shoe salesman making $8.25 an hour, he said. “I’m having a hard time keeping afloat,” said Hardin, 30.
Among steps the report recommends are raising the state minimum wage, currently $8.25 an hour, and adopting living-wage ordinances.