Rural low-wage employment rises among men

摘要

In 1999, nearly one-fourth of the rural wage and salary workforce over 25 earned ow wages. A large share of these workers are the sole or main wage earner in the household. Rural low-wage workers are more likely to be employed in service and retailtrade industries. But within a given industry, low-wage workers tend to be employed in less-skilled occupations requiring less education. Although low-wage rural workers continue to be overwhelmingly women and minorities, the share of White men in low-wage jobs has grown since 1979. According to 1999 data from the Current Population Survey, nearly 5 million rural wage and salary workers ages 25 and older (27.2 percent) received wages that, if earned full-time, full-year, would not lift a family of fourabove the official poverty level. Brisk growth in the U.S. economy since mid-decade has pushed up real wages and improved living standards for most workers. In 1999, average weekly earnings for rural wage and salary workers stood at 485 dollar, a 10.7-percent increase since 1990 after adjusting for inflation. Nonetheless, the share of rural workers receiving low pay at present remained high, er than the 24.6 percent rural rate in 1979 or the current urban rate of 19.3 percent. Rural low-wage workers earned a median hourly wage of 6.50 dollar, slightly less than the 6.65 dollar earned by their urban counterparts and much less than the 11.25 dollar rate earned by rural wage and salary workers overall. (See box "How Low-Wage Workers Are Defined")