American Demographics, Sep 1997 v19 n9 p2(1)

                 Equal-opportunity poverty: the pool of people who work a lot but earn a little has
                 widened. (Editorial) Diane Crispell.

            Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1997 American Demographics Inc. The pool of people who work a lot but earn a
            little has widened.

            One in five American men doesn't earn enough to lift a family of four out of poverty, according to the article on
            page 53. The numbers for women are even more dismal. We're not talking about people who can't or won't
            make the effort to work, but those who are putting in hours on jobs.

            People who work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, at the minimum wage in place as of September 1 ($5.15
            an hour) earn $10,400 a year. When I graduated from college in the early 1980s, $5 a hour was well above the
            minimum wage. It wasn't exactly equivalent to the starting salaries of my friends with engineering degrees, but it
            was easily enough to live on--as a single person without a car.

            It's still not bad pocket money for a young adult who lives at home with parents who pay most of the bills. It's
            fine for someone whose spouse brings home substantially more bacon. Those who oppose raising the minimum
            wage argue that most of the people who earn it are in these kinds of situations; not primary breadwinners, that
            is. But it doesn't change the fact that even those who earn 40 percent above the minimum wage are barely able
            to support four people.

            This might sound radical, but I don't believe education is the answer. Not the only answer, anyway. Even if
            every single young person in the U.S. received a college degree, they wouldn't all get high-paying, high-skilled
            jobs. We still need millions of people to man cash registers, wait tables, change bedpans, and do other things
            that require little in the way of formal education, but much in the way of common sense, physical strength, and
            compassion. Besides, everyone is not college material. This isn't a value judgment; it's truth. The reason why it's
            such a painful one is because it matters more than it used to.

            Some so-called unskilled work is still valued highly enough to keep its practitioners above the poverty line.
            Garbage collectors and construction workers (unionized ones, at least) make a decent living for doing hard but
            vital work in uncomfortable conditions. For the most part, however, an information economy prizes brains over
            brawn.

            No one seems to have a solution to this dilemma. It's not exactly new. There have always been crummy jobs.
            Sometimes the people who do them are women or children; sometimes they are slaves or other oppressed
            minorities. The difference in the U.S. of the nearly 21st century is that the opportunity for low-paying, unvalued
            jobs has become more equitable. Now white men have them, too. This isn't the reason why we should care
            about it more now; but maybe it's why it should scare us more.