low-skilled, low-wage jobs and high-skilled, high-wage jobs. As a consequence of this trend, workers lacking a relatively developed skill set or without a relatively high level of educational attainment are finding that the only options available to them are low-wage jobs with hourly pay rates close to the federal minimum wage.An article in the New York Times entitled “Unionizing the Bottom of the Pay Scale” characterizes some of the unsettling aspects of the hollowing trend in the labor market and discusses how labor union organizers are attempting to address the problem.
As the article indicates, national occupational projections show that many of the occupations producing the largest number of new jobs in the future pay low wages. According to the BLS 2010-2020 occupational projections, four of the top six fastest growing occupations ranked by largest number of new jobs pay a median wage of $10.10 an hour or less. These four occupations are, in order of their ranking, retail salespersons, home health aides, personal care aides, and food preparation and serving workers (which includes fast food workers). For a single parent with two kids, this would barely lift the family above the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 poverty threshold of $18,123, on the assumption that the employer hired the individual full time. Focusing on just fast food workers, the article cites research indicating that nearly three fourths of these workers live in poverty.
With such a large share of workers earning essentially poverty wages, labor unions have increased their efforts to organize workers in the lowest paying occupations. As the article’s author notes, successfully organizing some of these low-wage occupations will be difficult, partly because of high turnover in many of these occupations. However, it could perhaps become more common in the future to see striking workers where you would never expect them, such as in front of big-box retailers and fast food restaurants.
