The 10 percenters
December 9, 2009Great article by Elmer Smith for the Daily News here.
The last paragraphs of the story bring out some troubling facts:
“Good jobs” are those that can support a decent standard of living with health and retirement benefits. EPI and the Center for Budget Priorities define that as a job paying at least $14.51 an hour or $30,182 a year.
Over the last 30 years, according to a survey by Algernon Austin of the EPI, the number of jobs that meet that standard have fallen from 34.5 percent to 27.6 percent.
In other words, only one in four jobs in America support a minimal standard of living for a family of four and provide health and retirement benefits.
We are becoming a nation of people who work every day and still need help meeting our basic needs.
If big financial institutions needed a TARP, American workers need a tourniquet.”
The median wage in Philly is about $35,000, which means half of workers here make less than that. Considering how expensive this city can be, that’s a lot of people skimming awfully close to an unlivable wage. Elmer Smith is right: big business may be too important to fail, but so are families in Philly.
