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Struggling mom in a wealthy state
Economic boom created mostly low-paying jobs By David Preszler With two children and an $8-an-hour job, Medford’s Kelly Muro watches every penny. Closely. The 31-year-old single mother works 40 hours a week as a receptionist at Sonitrol, a local security company. She’s grateful that the job comes with health insurance, even if she can’t always afford the $20 co-pay on each of the three prescriptions she needs each month to control her diabetes. Daycare for her 3-year-old son, Cole, alone costs $440 a month; she gets some public assistance to help cover non-school hours for her 10-year-old daughter, Sierra, but some of that cost also comes out of her thin budget. "I try really hard not to get caught up in it," she says of the thin margin for error in her finances. "If I let myself, I would get really frustrated." Muro’s story is a common one — even in Oregon’s booming economy, according to a Labor Day study released by the Oregon Center for Public Policy. The study found that the poverty rate among working families with children increased substantially in the 1990s, despite a robust economy and boosts in Oregon’s minimum wage. The percentage of working families in Oregon below the federal poverty rate jumped from 9.7 to 15.2 percent; that’s one in every seven working families. "The benefits didn’t reach those folks," says Michael Leachman, one of the report’s authors. "A lot of the jobs that were created as part of the boom were low-paying jobs." Muro, who moved to Medford from California a year ago, admits her financial state gets her down sometimes but says she tries not to let it. Instead, she focuses on what she’s got, like her kids. On Sunday, she helped her daughter make banana bread and her son learn to use the restroom like a "big boy." She knows she’s fortunate to have a good relationship with her ex-husband, who pays child support and helps out as much as he can while attending Southern Oregon University. While she’d love more pay, she says she works for a good company; she’s heard from co-workers that the company rewards hard work with increases. Even though she isn’t always sure how she’ll make the car payment, she says she’s not embarrassed by struggling to get by. "I would be ashamed if I wasn’t working," says Muro, who didn’t go to college but got her first job at 16 and says she’s "worked ever since." So do most of the state’s poor families, according to the study, titled "Prosperity in Prospective: The State of Working Oregon 2000." It says 84 percent of families below the federal poverty line include an adult who works at least part of the year. But that hasn’t guaranteed success because of largely stagnant wages. The study found that despite gains in the late 1990s, the wages and income of Oregon workers show no improvement over 10 and 20 years ago. When adjusted for inflation, Oregon’s median hourly wage of $11.98 in 1999 was 2 percent lower than it was in 1989 and 9 percent lower than it was in 1979. Worker pay data for Jackson County shows that even after several years of gains, wages have yet to return to late 1970s levels. Adjusted for inflation, the average worker pay in Jackson County in 1979 was $28,107. In 1998, it was $24,731. Statewide, household incomes have been on the rise since 1997 and have reached late 1970s and late 1980s levels. But to get there, families are working more hours. The study found that the average household in the late 1990s is working 278 more hours than the average household in the late 1970s — that’s nearly seven more weeks of work a year. "It’s frustrating for all these families that are working more than their parents did and are treading water or not doing as well as their parents did," Leachman says. The increase in hours worked per household isn’t the only disheartening trend. The study also found higher debt levels and personal bankruptcy rates. "Basically, when you put all the pieces together, families are working real hard to try and get ahead and in the process are working longer and taking on more debt," says Jeff Thompson, a co-author of the study. On the bright side, the report notes that incomes and wages have grown in the past few years as the state and national economy has roared. But the study’s authors say families are still playing catch up and have yet to make up ground lost over the past two decades. The problem is a long-acknowledged one in Northwest economics: a lack of high-paying jobs to replace those lost in the decline of the timber industry. The study notes that much of Oregon’s recent job growth has come in lower-paying industries. Thirty-five percent of Oregon’s jobs in 1998 were classified as "low-paying," up from 30 percent in 1978, the study says. Low-paying was defined as jobs with average annual salaries of $25,000 or less. That trend has played out in the Rogue Valley, according to Guy Tauer of the Oregon Employment Department. Job growth has come primarily in the lower-paying retail and service industries, while higher-paying timber jobs slip away. Wage and occupation data for Jackson and Josephine County illustrate Tauer’s point. In 1998, the most common job — based on government employment codes — was for retail salespersons. There were 3,617 such jobs, paying a median wage of $8.08 an hour. Among the job classifications with more than 1,000 jobs, only three paid a median wage of more than $10 an hour. "In an economy thought to be ‘as good as it gets,’" the Labor Day report concludes, "many working people have simply been left out." |
