- A staggering number of people with factory jobs still need government help, By Jim Tankersley, May 10, 2016, Washington Post: “Philadonna Wade works the night shift at the Detroit Chassis plant in Avon, Ohio, finishing off truck axles before they ship off to one of the big Ford factories nearby. It is heavier work than her last job, which was stocking shelves at a Family Dollar store, and Wade says it’s helping her get in shape. ‘I enjoy the job, I enjoy the people I work with,’ she said in an interview recently. ‘But the thing is, when you go to a job, it’s not about enjoying the people you work with, it’s about earning more for your family.’ At the plant, Wade has the sort of job that Americans often associate with a blue-collar American Dream. But she’s paid more like a low-level service worker: $9.50 an hour, with no benefits. She is officially a temporary worker, sourced through a staffing agency, and she doesn’t earn nearly enough to feed, clothe and house her four children. Taxpayers help her make up the difference. ‘I get energy assistance, I get food stamps, I get Medicaid,’ she said. ‘Every bit of public assistance there is, I get it…'”
- One in three US manufacturing workers are on welfare: Study, By Jeff Cox, May 12, 2016, CNBC: “Philadonna Wade’s story plays out across middle America on a daily basis but is seldom told. It’s the story of the working poor who labor in tough jobs — like Wade’s position as an assembler for a Ford Motor plant — that don’t pay enough to keep them off public assistance. In fact, fully 1 in 3 Americans who work in the manufacturing sector are receiving some form of public assistance, according to a study released this week by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. Of those who came to their positions through temp agencies, a category in which Wade falls, half are on some type of safety net program…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty