Word: wages
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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They are dirty jobs, but someone has to do them: messenger, storeroom clerk, cook in a fast-food restaurant. The work requires few skills, pays little and offers almost no chance for advancement. Minimum-wage jobs. In the 1980s earning a living at minimal pay is more difficult than ever. During the inflationary spiral of the late '70s, the minimum wage was increased almost yearly, but since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the standard has been frozen at $3.35 an hour. Not since World War II has it gone unchanged for so long...
...minimum wage is not a living wage," says Senator Edward Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, "and it is not a decent society in which a full-time job means a lifetime in poverty." For the 5 million people earning the minimum wage or less (out of 58 million hourly workers), a full-time job means $6,968 a year at most. The poverty line for a single person is $5,469 a year, for two people $6,998, and for a family of four...
...chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, Kennedy is expected to push for an increase in the minimum wage during this Congress. In the House, New York Democrat Mario Biaggi has submitted a bill to raise the current rate to $5.05 an hour over a five-year period and index it after 1991 to half of average hourly earnings. The present minimum is less than 38% of average...
...French public-service strike, the most serious in nearly two decades, looks more Italian every day. Workers are demanding, among other things, wage increases higher than the government's 3% ceiling. Police have had to clear picketers off railroad tracks at scores of stations, and labor unrest has spread to Communist-led work stoppages on Paris subways, in the electric-power service and on the docks. At week's end the rail strike finally seemed to be losing steam, but the unrest could be prolonged in other areas...
Under the Family Independence Program proposed last November by Governor Booth Gardner, the incentives for working are substantial. A woman with two children earning close to minimum wage might take home as much as $10,464 a year: $7,752 in salary and government benefits, plus an additional $2,712 in bonuses. That is 15% above the current poverty level for a family of three. As the wages of a participant increase, the bonuses and benefits gradually decrease. The enrollee loses the assistance only when her pay exceeds the $10,464 benchmark...