As CEO Pay Soars, Many New Jobs Fail To Provide A Living Wage

Despite a falling unemployment rate and encouraging signs of a healing economy, a new report suggests America is not adding the right kind of jobs.

Most newly-created jobs don't pay enough to meet even the most basic of needs, according to a report released by Wider Opportunities for Women on Friday.

The report came as a USA Today study found CEO pay climbing back to pre-recession levels. In data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national unemployment rate inched down to 8.8 percent from 8.9 percent.

But with wages virtually static, job creation modest and the cost gas and energy rising, the timing couldn't be worse for low-wage workers, who are bearing the brunt of the recession that has seen state and federal governments slash their safety nets in the name of deficit reduction.

Single workers need almost twice the federal minimum wage to cover their basic expenses -- just over $30,000 a year -- according to the report by Wider Opportunities for Women.

Single parents, meanwhile, need almost $58,000 to meet the most basic needs of two children, and two-income households require roughly $68,000, the report found. Many new jobs being created will not pay wages that offer that level of economic security, and most workers without a four-year college degree will not have access to the jobs that do, according to the report's authors.

"Too few American families are living in economically secure households, with most workers unable to stretch their incomes over basic expenses and savings," Joan Kuriansky, executive director of WOW said in a statement. "The American Dream of working hard to support your family is being rewritten by the growth of low paying industries and rising expenses."

The WOW report suggests that limiting budget cuts to programs that help bridge the gap between low wages and the increasing cost of living could stop families from sliding further into poverty. Programs that especially help struggling families, the report says, include Childcare and Development Block Grant and Head Start, as well Department of Labor job training programs and Medicaid.

"Cuts to Head Start and childcare assistance programs will leave many parents without a childcare option and could force many of them to leave their jobs," WOW executive director Kuriansky said. "Cutting the very programs that are helping families stay afloat is a short-sighted move that will stall our economic recovery."

At the same time many American workers grapple with their low-wage jobs, the CEOs of some of the country's biggest companies are enjoying significant pay increases, according to analysis released today by USA Today. Pay for CEOs running companies in the S&P 500 jumped 27 percent in 2010, the paper found. The same can't be said for workers across the board, as overall pay grew by just 2.1 percent over the same time period, according to figures cited by USA Today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

American workers displeased with their jobs now rate their overall life satisfaction lower than even unemployed workers, a Gallup poll showed this week. Unemployed workers reported positive experiences -- including being "treated with respect" and learning "something interesting" -- more often than workers currently unsatisfied with their jobs.

Comments

[picaman]

12:15 PM on 05/06/2011

tell congress to stop giving away American jobs and depressing wages through foreign guest workers.
Sign the petition on change.org
http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-giving-away-american-jobs

[pooka47401]

11:48 AM on 05/02/2011

Mitch Daniels, Presidential wanna be, has now put a moratorium on Medicaid paying Nursing Homes for Beds for the Elderly. He is "reorganizing " programs like First Steps, that help parents with disabled babies.
"Reorganizes the state public employee civil service. Makes changes in retirement benefit programs for certain state public safety employees……Makes changes in the Medicaid program and other health benefit programs, the first steps program, higher education scholarship programs, dual credit programs, and the Indiana comprehensive health insurance association (ICHIA) policy program. Imposes a moratorium on new Medicaid beds. Authorizes the adoption of emergency rules for programs administered by the family and social services administration. Makes changes related to distributions to hospitals. Provides for a quality assurance fee on nursing homes and hospitals.
Makes changes related to collective bargaining of school employees, vacation leave for deaf and blind school employees, textbook reimbursement, and other education provisions.

Anything that the Wisconsin Gov has done, Mitch did first, but it seems that no media wants to cover him in a negative light.

[SharedGrowth]

02:27 AM on 04/17/2011

The CEO pay situation is ridiculous. Over-concentration of wealth will destroy America. For more statistics on CEO pay and a proposal for helping to rationalize it and make it less sneaky, see http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110415/bs_ac/8297661_ceos_still_get_princely_pay_for_pathetic_performance . For thoughts on how to give market power back to other employees, see http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/7942051/the_tax_reform_hearings_are_missing.html and http://www.sharedeconomicgrowth.org

[Rudym]

09:00 AM on 04/06/2011

Free trade must be legislated by Congress to be fair and balanced. Congress has failed in their Constitutional responsibi¬lities to regulate trade and middle class workers are suffering the pain and falling into poverty levels.

To return livable wages to the USA requires that a tariff be placed on any product or service on a country when the amount in dollars of their exports into the USA exceed the amount of dollars that the USA products and services export back into that country. In other words balance the flow of free trade to match import and export dollars. The USA worker cannot compete with a worker that makes $2.00 a day.

The average savings Americans presently incur by buying foreign products is $2300 a year. That is a bad deal for workers who lost a manufactur¬ing job, or their service job outsourced, that paid $40,000 a year and now works in a service job in the USA for minimum wages
.
Free Trade is also a bad deal for the US government because the displaced worker no longer makes enough in a minimum wage service job to pay taxes. All American workers must now subsidize the displaced worker with unemployme¬nt, medical, food stamps, rent subsidies, and in many cases prison costs.
.

In other words, free trade has not been a good deal for the USA middle class. Even the WTO states in the charter that unbalanced trade between members is wrong and harmful.

[Hysterian68]

11:24 AM on 04/05/2011

A good General Strike is in order about now.

[VietnamVeteran]

11:20 AM on 04/05/2011

Please add this to your daily outrage. We have some new jobs. Problem is, they are in Africa.
That is right. What makes this particullarly appalling is that this is a Department of Defense contract to build trucks, and they are being built in Africa. Taxpayer price= one quarter billion dollars. $$

Critical Solutions Internatio¬nal, Inc., Carrollton¬, Texas, was awarded on March 16 a $214,284,9¬32 firm-fixed¬-price contract. The award will provide for the procuremen¬t of 118 vehicle mounted mine-detec¬tion MKK II Type II systems. Work will be performed in Gauteng, South Africa, with an estimated completion date of Oct. 16, 2012. One bid was solicited with one bid received. The U.S. Army TACOM LCMC, Warren, Mich., is the contractin¬g activity (W56HZV-08¬-D-0001).


American company gets quarter billion contract and is going to build the trucks in Africa.
What a great country. A race to the bottom. Sad

Great example of war profiteering. No one watching D o D. How would a returning veteran from the middle east after two or three tours, after discharge, looking for a job, react to this?

[barbintheboonies]

10:17 AM on 04/05/2011

Pay increased 2.1% ? Not for anyone I know, The ones that kept their jobs took cuts in pay and need to pay more to their insurance plans with less coverage. Now with food and gas prices soaring out of control it`s hard to stay afloat.

[ProgressiveOregonian]

08:49 AM on 04/05/2011

America is no longer the land of th free and home of the brave. We are now the land of the serf and home of the CEO. The middle class will soon be gone and then we will truly be a third world country by all standards.

[spinotter11]

11:49 AM on 04/05/2011

And we're all letting it happen.

[stop the spin]

02:05 PM on 04/06/2011

The way they're paying these CEO's of multinational corporations with hundreds of thousands of employees you'd almost think they were doing something important - like slam dunking a basketball; or starring in a box-office flop...

[zelda777]

11:25 PM on 04/04/2011

Welcome to the New Feudalism.

[jdevans]

06:36 PM on 04/04/2011

McDonalds is planning on hiring 50,000 people in one day. But how many of those jobs will be at a livable wage? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/04/mcdonalds-to-fill-50000-jobs_n_844356.html

[stop the spin]

02:08 PM on 04/06/2011

I guess you shouldn't start a family until you've moved above the level of flipping burgers.

Never mind, live as you please and allow the rest of us to subsidize your lifestyle choices...

[pompous]

05:42 PM on 04/04/2011

Since inauguration day in 1981 and "Morning in America" many bought into "trickle down" as a viable plan to insure that all would share in the economic success of American work and ingenuity. It is far better movie than even Hollywood could of come up with - a post war era clouded with a bad economy, national self doubt and facing nuclear threat- enter kindly grandfatherly man and former actor promising to right the wrongs. The wrongs of course being regulation, government spending (military company excluded), taxes on the wealthy and pinkos. The genius comes when you convince people to hate regulations that protect their interests because regulations are bad for business and are sort of pinko. There are far too many welfare queens sporting around our nation's freeways in Cadillacs, elderly collecting social security checks and healthcare also pinko and take resources away from fighting evil empire. Taxes on the wealthy are too high and after taxes they are barely left with enough money to buy stuff which if they buy stuff means jobs and so even if the tax cuts aren't really for the middle class, directly, they are kinda of yours if rich people spend - ah that's what we meant by it's your money we didn't exactly say we would make them spend it and guaranteeing that would be really pinko.

[barbintheboonies]

10:30 AM on 04/05/2011

Also the regulations that were removed were only removed for the big corps.They do not want you to compete with them.

[spinotter11]

11:51 AM on 04/05/2011

Plan working beautifully so far. What's your take on its chance of ultimate success? Or has it already achieved success? What are the goals?

[pompous]

01:44 PM on 04/05/2011

Well the train left the station 30 years ago and has gained an ever increasing momentum aimed right at heart of New Deal/Warren court structure. The GOP have been masters at convincing the "average Joe" that his enemy is the "average Joe" neighboring him in the next house. More important is that that average Joe with the back injury on disability or laid off is impinging on your freedom by taking your hard earned money out of your pocket. That the neighboring average Joe's kids are parasites of property taxes and are the reason you can't afford a bigger house. Neighboring average Joe of course has a retired mother living on a fixed income and receives medicare and she is proof positive that the Soviet Union may have really won and it is irrelevant that his own mother has no problem attending tea party rallies and collecting her own SS check/medicare - the point is government is bad. Government is so bad that despite years of technological strides schools are failing Joe's kids. This all leads us to the ultimate goal to privatize the government because business does everything better except of course when things go bad, i.e. financial crisis or Gulf oil spill. The chance of all this succeeding is high simply because they have succeeded in getting "average Joe" one to hate all the other Joes. It is doubtful that we can count on Joe to change his mind anytime soon but things are not insurmountable.

[nobodysgirl]

04:55 PM on 04/04/2011

So, the republican plan appears to be working, then, huh?

[Hysterian68]

11:26 AM on 04/05/2011

"the Republican plan" is anarchy, revolution, soon to be followed by martial law and dictatorship. With Barack Obama sent into exile, if he's lucky.

[spinotter11]

03:09 PM on 04/05/2011

A little over the top, perhaps? As befits your moniker, no doubt about that.

[farmilyman]

04:07 PM on 04/04/2011

Whoa........I didn't see that coming.

[Jerry Lammers]

03:36 PM on 04/04/2011

This is a real shame!!! If we were to establish a minimum wage of $20/hour, we would both transform the culture and be able to phase out all those government programs designed to help the working poor. The current extremely low minimum wage requires that the government help those whose incomes don't provide a living wage, with a myriad of beaucratic programs. These programs are direct subsidies to those businesses (and their extremely overpaid executives) that have primarily minimum wage workers.

[MrStat1]

03:52 PM on 04/04/2011

And you would destroy the economy over night!

[jdevans]

06:37 PM on 04/04/2011

Corporations are making record profits. They can afford to give executives obscene bonuses, yet can't pay the people who are doing the work a decent wage.

[spinotter11]

11:53 AM on 04/05/2011

An Australian posted that the minimum wage there is AUD 15, and he claimed parity for the two currencies. Australia's society has NOT suffered the sort of attacks that we have here in the US. A high minimum wage could work if income were more equally shared.