North Carolina working families struggling to make ends meet
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008
By Jeff Shaw
A new national report finds that 32 percent of working families in North Carolina earn low incomes, ranking the state 37th in the nation for percentage of low-income working families. Additionally, 24.4 percent of the jobs in the state are in occupations that pay below the federal poverty level for a family of four.
“Still Working Hard, Still Falling Short ,” found more than one in four working families nationwide – a total of 42 million adults and children – worked, yet earned too little to meet their basic needs in 2006. This is an increase over the 350,000 working families who have become low-income since 2002. This increase came during a period of economic expansion, suggesting that those national numbers will continue to grow during this current economic downturn. And in North Carolina, the situation was even more dire.
“Hard work alone fails to put a third of North Carolina’s working families on solid financial footing,” said John Quinterno, research associate with the NC Budget & Tax Center. “Even more alarmingly, half of all families headed by members of racial or ethnic minority groups are struggling to make ends meet.”
The report calls for stronger policies for working families at both the state and federal level. Inadequate education plays a major role in preventing low-income workers from climbing the economic ladder, and federal and state resources for adult education or skills training programs meet only about one-tenth of the need.
“States that have successfully reduced their number of low-income working families have done so by strengthening their systems of postsecondary education, especially community colleges, refocusing economic development practices on high-quality jobs and expanding critical work supports like subsidized child care and state earned income tax credits,” said Quinterno. “North Carolina has taken steps in this direction, but more could be done, especially now that the labor market is deteriorating.”
The report provides detailed data and rankings on low-income working families in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In addition to providing figures on the number of low-income workers and their children, the report also looks at education levels, racial makeup, housing costs and health insurance coverage.
Among the other findings specific to North Carolina:
- Children are disproportionately impacted. The percentage of children who live in low-income working families is 37, ranking the state 37th.
- Education is critical. 30 percent of low-income working families in North Carolina have at least one parent without a high school degree and 54 percent have at least one parent without any post-secondary education.
- Minority families are hit hard. 50 percent of minority working families in North Carolina are low-income.
- Health care is hard to come by. Families living without health insurance here make up 43 percent or working families, ranking North Carolina 39th among U.S. states.
“Still Working Hard, Still Falling Short” was produced by the Working Poor Families Project, a national initiative to examine the conditions of America’s working families. The Budget & Tax Center is the project’s research partner in North Carolina. As part of that work, the Center published the report “North Carolina’s Unfinished Transformation” in 2006. That report presented a detailed action agenda to assist low-income working families.
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