Full Citation
Title: The Public Cost of Low-Wage Work in New England
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2016
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Abstract: The decade 2003 to 2013 was a tough one for workers in the United States, 70 percent of whom saw their real (inflation-adjusted) wages decline. In New England, 50 percent of workers experienced a decline in real wages. Although that was less than workers nationwide, the changes were more extreme, with lower-wage workers experiencing deeper drops in their real wages and higher-wage earners making greater gains than in the nation as a whole.1 (See “Change in Real Wages, 2003–2013.”) The decline in employer-provided health insurance has exacerbated the pain, with the share of nonelderly New Englanders who receive insurance from their employer falling from 72.3 percent in 2003 to 67.8 percent in 2013.2 As job-based coverage has declined, more workers and their family members have enrolled in public health-care programs. Stagnating wages and decreased employer benefits are a problem not only for low-wage workers, who increasingly cannot make ends meet, but also for state governments, which help finance the public safety net that many workers and their families must use.
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Jacobs, Ken; Perry, Ian; MacGillvary, Jenifer
Publisher: University of California, Berkeley
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other
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