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Low-Wage Work in Buffalo-Niagara
Sam Magavern, John Sullivan Baker — Nov 20, 2018
This policy brief presents data on Buffalo-Niagara workers with a median wage of less than $15 per hour. It includes a list of all the occupations that fall into that low-wage category, along with the number of workers in each occupation and the hourly wage. Setting the data in the context of de-unionization and the shift from manufacturing to service jobs, it analyzes the loss in job quality and offers recommendations for reversing it. The brief was researched by Cornell University High Road …
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A Raise for Fast Food Workers Will Help Western New York
Sam Magavern — Jun 3, 2015
The most pressing problems in Western New York in many areas of life, including education, healthcare, and criminal justice, can be traced to a single root: poverty. Families living in poverty suffer from lower graduation rates, more chronic diseases, and more criminal violence than families earning living wages. In our region, as around the nation, roughly 45% of workers are employed in low-wage service sector jobs. Those jobs are not going away; in fact, they are the fastest …
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Unemployment and Poverty in Western New York
Owen Field — Apr 29, 2010
It is a common understanding that a high unemployment rate means that more people are out of work and therefore more people have fallen into poverty. But the relationship between unemployment and poverty is complex, and the two may not always relate very directly. It is necessary to examine states, counties, and even cities separately to determine the extent of this relationship and the possibilities of other influential factors.
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Drug Testing by Potential Employers
Neil Diegelman — Apr 28, 2010
New York State should pass laws that regulate pre-employment drug testing in order to maximize fairness, accuracy, and efficiency while recognizing employers’ needs to maintain a drug-free workplace. Drug testing, when done properly, is quite accurate and has standardized procedures to ensure fairness. A pre-employment drug test can be an effective way for an employer to check on factors influencing whether an applicant will be productive or continuously tardy or have attitude …
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Transportation and Low Wage Work
Michael Raleigh — Apr 28, 2010
Living on a low wage can be extremely difficult, yet the number of low wage jobs in metro Buffalo grew by 17% from 2004 to 2008. This means that many more people are struggling to figure out how to survive with less money. It also means that it is becoming increasingly difficult for many people to afford transportation. As the location of employment has dispersed throughout the region, transportation has become a basic need similar to food, clothing, and shelter. A …
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The Problem of Worker Misclassification
Ryan Parisi — Apr 27, 2010
Employee misclassification is a significant problem that continues to plague the labor market. Unscrupulous and unknowing employers alike are costing individual workers and society tremendously. Not only are workers missing out on legal protections, but society is losing contributions from employers that should be paid into different employment systems (payroll taxes, unemployment benefits, workers compensation benefits, etc.).
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Criminal Convictions and Employment Rights in New York State
Robert Strassel — Apr 26, 2010
New York has a strong policy toward preventing discrimination based on prior criminal convictions and its progressive policy outlook should encouraged. In 2007 a report concluded that New York employees were largely unfamiliar with State laws regulating an employer’s use of prior criminal convictions for employment-related decisions, and in response, the legislature amended Section 296 of New York Executive Law to require employers to post and disseminate information regarding a job …
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Education Levels and Low-Wage Work
Dannine Consoli — Apr 26, 2010
Is education the key to getting low-wage workers out of poverty and into higher paying, middle class jobs? In the United States, roughly one in three jobs pays a low wage. The Center for Economic and Policy Research defines “low wage” as less than 66 percent of the median wage for male workers (the median weekly pay rate for men in the fourth quarter of 2009 was $825). Employees with higher levels of education do have a significantly lower probability of working a …
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Overtime Violations
Lisa Diaz-Ordaz — Apr 26, 2010
Overtime violations are especially prevalent in low wage jobs. Some of the industries with notably high instances of violations include the restaurant and hotel industries, retail, drug and grocery stores, private households and home health care. Within these industries, occupations with the most overtime violations include childcare workers, home health care workers, waiters and bartenders, cooks and food preparers, retail salespeople, cashiers and stock clerks. A quick …
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Paid Sick Leave: Should Investing in the Workforce be Mandatory?
Stuart Frame — Apr 22, 2010
Paid sick leave is a benefit supplied to employees: it means that they are allotted a certain amount of days every year when they can call in sick and the employer still pays them for a full day of work. Roughly 86% of U.S. workers currently receive at least some paid sick leave as a benefit from their employers. While workers at larger businesses have more paid leave than workers at smaller firms, in every sector of the economy the vast majority of workers get paid sick leave. Most …
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Playing an Insecure Hand
Kasia McDonald Feb 1, 2010
For a growing number of families and workers in Western New York, low-wage work is the only—or the last—employment option. In 2009, one out of four jobs in the region were in occupations where the median annual wage fell below the poverty line for a family of four. This rising reliance on low-wage work is a discouraging change from the post-war economic boom when incomes and standards of living soared—a period that continues to shape our employment and lifestyle …