September 2, 2001
Many Washingtonians work longer hours just to keep pace
Growing numbers of Washington state residents are working extra hours and multiple jobs just to keep up with the cost of living, according to a new University of Washington study.
Families in the $15,000-$30,000 income group work 8 percent more weekly hours than a decade ago — nearly double the increase logged by higher-income groups.
Yet despite those expanding workweeks, the buying power of lower-income families shrank by 9.4 percent, according to the study from the Northwest Policy Center, an arm of the UW’s Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs.
“Lower-income families are falling behind despite working longer hours,” said Christopher Haugen, a policy analyst with the school.
Upper-income groups, by contrast, prospered during a decade of unrivaled prosperity, with overall inflation-adjusted per capita income growing by 20.2 percent.
Historically, employees in low-income families worked fewer hours than their wealthier counterparts. The new study shows that, in this category, low income workers have caught up — and then some.
Even factoring in part-timers, employed adults in the $15,000-$30,000 range now average 39.2 hours of work per week, surpassing the 38.8 hours logged by those in the $30,000-$75,000 range. (Those with paychecks above $75,000 worked slightly longer: 40.2 hours).
“People with low-wage jobs are working longer than ever and making less,” said Bob Watrus, chairman of the Northwest Policy Center. “They’re having to piece different jobs together even to keep pace. People are eager to work, but there just aren’t enough living-wage jobs.”
More than 11 percent of lower-income people who work full-time supplement their income with a second or third job, according to the study.
The study, part of a national effort coordinated by the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute, drew data from the Current Population Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the State Population Survey conducted by the Washington state Office of Financial Management.
Several other states will be releasing similar studies over the Labor Day weekend. But analysts at the Northwest Policy Center used more recent figures for Washington than what was available nationally, Haugen said, so the data may not be fully comparable.
The Washington findings are consistent with the Northwest Policy Center’s Job Gap Study released earlier this summer, which also found a shortage of living-wage jobs in the state.
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For more information contact Haugen at (206) 543-0190 or haugen@u.washington.edu or Watrus at (206) 616-1636 or bwatrus@u.washington.edu. The study, including more charts, is posted at http://depts.washington.edu/npc/. The Economic Policy Institute’s web site is www.epinet.org
