"In 2001 about 27.5 million Americans, 23.9 percent of the labor, earned less than $8.70 an hour. Working full-time for the entire year at this wage produces annual earnings of just $17,400 - about equal to the poverty line for a family of four, and not nearly enough to sustain most working families."(p. 1)
"[Depending on the community] a family with two parents and two children requires between $27,000 and $52,000 annually in order to maintain a basic standard of living; the national median is about $33,5000. For a single working parent with two children, a basic family budget ranges from $22,000 to $48,600. Overall, in the late 1990s, fully 29 percent of working families with children under twelve had incomes lower than the basic family budget for their communities." (p.1)
(Kind of bolsters the suspicion that not all the droves of women who have entered the workforce
did so to find self-fulfillment. And no wonder there's a widespread Living Wage movement in the U.S. )
Following the initial overview chapter, 12 articles provide case studies and hard data on employment in the service sector, impacts of new technologies on employees, job quality and career opportunities, effects of outsourcing - all in the context of 'management discretion'.
We Canadians are facing similar low market-wage figures, but our 'social-wage' provisions have until the last few years helped to keep poor families afloat. Suspecting further Canadian emulation of U.S.neocon social program cuts, my community and several others are revving up our own Living Wage campaigns. But it's a very tough slog, and leads to a certain fury.
Anyway, read the book.
Sally _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
