Low Wage Work

The need to improve the earnings of low-wage workers remains a challenge for current welfare policy. The LED program data - with the insights into the interactions between workers and firms over the 1990's until 2002 provide a unique opportunity to examine

1. The long-term experiences of low-wage workers - particularly their transitions out of low-wage status
2. The impact of firm and industry on their ability to exit out of low-wage work.
3. The importance of location.

Summary

Work funded by the Rockefeller/Russell Sage Foundations, which will be forthcoming in a book tentatively titled "Moving Up Or Moving On: Workers, Firms and Advancement in the Low-Wage Labor Market" by Fredrik Anderson, Harry Holzer and Julia Lane finds the following:

Almost half of workers who persistently had low earnings from 1996-98 earned somewhat higher incomes in 1999-2001. Low earners who changed jobs during that time were considerably more likely to garner higher earnings in the latter period than those who stayed at the same job.
Low earners were much more likely to increase their pay if they gained employment at a higher-wage firm. Low-earning white males improve their subsequent earnings more frequently than other groups because of their greater ability to gain employment at high-wage firms. Low earners who began working at "temp" agencies were also more likely to gain employment subsequently at high-wage firms than were other low earners.
Medium- and high-wage firms are more heavily concentrated in urban counties than in suburban or rural ones. Yet certain better-paying industries that employ large numbers of less-educated workers, such as construction and manufacturing, are located outside urban counties relatively more often than are other industries.

More Information

Research and Working Papers

• "The Interaction of Workers and Firms in the Low Wage Labor Market" [PDF; File Size: 295KB], F. Andersson, H. Holzer, J. Lane. Ref: LED TP-2002-12 [PDF; File Size: 295KB]
• "Worker Advancement in the Low-Wage Labor Market: The Importance of Good Jobs" [PDF; File Size: 215KB], F. Andersson, H. Holzer, J. Lane. Ref: LED TP-2003-08 [PDF; File Size: 215KB]