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Article: The low-wage puzzle: why is America generating so many bad jobs--and how can we create more good jobs?(In Low-Wage America)
- Article from:
- The American Prospect
- Article date:
- January 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The American Prospect, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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When America's most recent economic boom ended in 200l, the economy was turning out $7 trillion worth of consumer goods and services a year--enough to provide every man, woman and child with almost $25,000 worth of food, housing, transportation, medical care and other things every year. If all that stuff had been divided equally, the typical American household, which now has three members, would have gotten about $75,000 worth. Yet as we see in this issue of the Prospect, based on new research by the Russell Sage and Rockefeller foundations, a lot of Americans had to scrape by on far less than that. Almost one American worker in five reported having been paid less than $8 ...