Bad Jobs Are Bad for Workers

Today, millions of American workers are trapped in bad jobs. Their wages are insufficient to support a family or even themselves. Their schedules are unpredictable, impacting their monthly income and their ability to plan their lives. They face limited opportunities for advancement, insufficient benefits and retirement provisions. And they hold frustrating and demeaning roles that lack dignity and respect: struggling with cash registers they have never been trained to use; getting yelled at by customers because they can’t locate items; or trying to care for elderly patients with inadequate support and tools.

In 2019, 32% of the workforce—46.5 million people—worked in occupations with a median wage below $15 an hour (see a list of the lowest paying job categories). A single parent working 40 hours a week at $15/hour would make $2,580/month. Using MIT’s living wage calculator, that’s $494 less than the rent, childcare, transportation, food, and medical expenses in Tulsa, OK. That’s not even counting personal care, clothing, leisure, housekeeping supplies, phone bills, or unexpected expenses. Many service workers don’t even get 40 hours, so their annual pay is much lower. Brookings Institute estimates that 53 million Americans make less than $17,950 a year.

Low-wage workers live in a vicious cycle that prevents them from accessing more opportunities. Many work multiple jobs but forty percent of Americans, disproportionately Black, still cannot absorb an unexpected $400 expense. The associated stress undermines cognitive ability, mental health, and physical health. Indeed, that stress lowers cognitive functioning, creating a “bandwidth tax” equal to a loss of 13 IQ points. Performance suffers as it is harder to keep up good attendance, focus on the job, be productive, and do your best for customers or coworkers. Unsurprisingly, these workers find it hard to work up the ladder of opportunity that this country has historically provided.

Children born to financially insecure parents are more likely to develop chronic health conditions, and very likely to end up financially insecure themselves. It is not overstating the case to say that this is a life or death issue: an American Public Health Society study that found low wages contributed to between 2,800 and 5,500 premature deaths in New York city between 2008-2012. Research on the effects of increased minimum wages have shown that even small increases can improve worker well-being in the form of fewer unmet medical needs, better nutrition, less smoking, less child neglect, fewer low-birth-weight babies, and fewer teen births.

Future job growth points to more bad jobs for workers. When you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s top 20 fastest-growth occupations—which account for 55% of projected job growth—most pay below the median wage. These jobs—health aids, food and cleaning services, farm laborers— have proven essential during the COVID pandemic. But unless we find a way to transform these low-wage jobs into good jobs, the working poor will grow in number and Americans—especially those without a college degree whose real wages have decreased during the last four decades—will remain frustrated.