Rural Low-Wage Workers Face Multiple Economic Disadvantages
Robert
Gibbs and Timothy
Parker
Nearly one in four wage and salary workers
age 25 and older living in rural (nonmetro) America
in 2005 were low- wage workers. Low-wage workers
in 2005 are defined as workers earning less on a
full-time, full-year basis than the weighted four-person
poverty threshold ($19,971). The financial
difficulties that these low-wage workers face are
often compounded by limited job-related benefits,
such as employer-based health insurance, and lower
overall family income. Among all rural workers,
low-wage workers are therefore more likely to participate
in Federal assistance programs as a means to ensure
a measure of economic security.
Families typically pool economic
resources, so the earnings of a single member may
not be indicative of the worker’s or the family’s
well-being. The income available to the average
rural low-wage worker from sources other than their
own earnings, however, is lower than for other rural
workers. Median family income for rural low-wage
workers in 2005 was $28,000, about 53 percent less
than the median ($59,200) for other rural wage and
salary workers. Rural low-wage workers are also
less likely to be in two-earner households (55 percent
compared with 69 percent). Their more limited access
to additional income largely explains a poverty
rate of 19.1 percent among rural low-wage workers,
compared with 1.1 percent for other rural workers.
A small percentage of non-low-wage workers are below
the poverty level due to the composition or relatively
large size of their family. Another 9.1 percent
are considered near poor, with incomes between 100
and 124 percent of the poverty level.
In addition to lower family income,
rural low-wage workers are often concentrated in
economic sectors with a greater share of seasonal
and part-time jobs, such as agriculture, retail
trade, and other services. These jobs, in turn,
are associated with greater earnings instability
and lower nonmonetary benefits. Rural low-wage workers,
for example, are only half as likely to be covered
by an employer-sponsored health plan as other rural
workers (33 percent compared with 68 percent). However,
more than a third are engaged in industries such
as manufacturing, education, and health services,
which have an above-average record of providing
employer-sponsored health insurance.
Rural low-wage workers are more
likely than other rural workers to seek assistance
from government programs such as food stamps and
school lunch programs. Although only 1.6 percent
of rural low-wage workers received public assistance
(welfare payments), 15.2 percent of their households
received food stamps or school lunch subsidies (versus
2.6 percent for other rural workers). Also, 57.3
percent of children in rural households with a low-wage
worker received free or reduced-price school lunches,
compared with 19.7 percent of children in other
rural households.
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