More People Working for Less Money, Census Survey Finds

The proportion of full-time workers in the United States with low-paying jobs rose sharply over the last decade, the Census Bureau reported Monday.

In 1979 about 12% of the nation’s full-time workers had what the census characterized as low annual incomes. In 1990, the figure was about 18%.

The study is likely to fuel debate on whether the millions of new jobs created in the United States in recent years are good jobs or, as many critics contend, low-quality, low-pay positions. In the decade before 1974, low-paid full-time workers were a declining proportion of the U.S. work force and stayed stable at 12% from 1974 to 1979.

The report said wages are the source of about four-fifths of all income in the United States and that “declining wage rates can be a source of economic and social distress.”

The study defined low earnings as wages below the official government poverty level for a family of four, regardless of whether there were four members in the wage earner’s family. For 1990 that level was $12,195.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning think tank, said the study shows that even when some breadwinners work full-time year-round, they are paid so little it is barely possible for them to sustain their families.

Janet Norwood, former commissioner of labor statistics, said the idea that a disproportionate number of new jobs are low paying might be simplistic because of the possibility that many new jobs were also created at the upper end.