Education is key to creating 'living' wages
Tuesday, August 7, 2007 7:36 AM PDT
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E-mail this articleMonday's headlines put somewhat of a damper on news of this state's strong recovery from the post-9/11 economic recession. Most of the some 240,000 new jobs created in Washington between 2002 and 2006 -- almost 70 percent of them -- paid less than a living wage for a family of four, according to a report in The Seattle Times.
Apparently, this economic expansion is fairly anemic job-wise compared to the last boom. That earlier '90s expansion created more than 99,000 jobs paying more than $50,000, The Times reported. Only 57,000 jobs created during the current boom pay that much.
That most of available jobs today pay less than a living wage should come as no surprise to members of this community. Cowlitz County has seen around 1,800 high-paying manufacturing jobs vanish since 2001. Most new jobs created in recent years have been lower-paying retail jobs. Many of those jobs offered the prospect of earning the nearly $11-an-hour considered to be a living wage for a single person in Washington, but few topped the more than $28-an-hour needed to sustain a family of four.
Cowlitz County has watched this employment trend develop for some time now. Jobs in natural resource-based industries that once provided young people in this area the prospect of earning a living wage right out of high school have been on the decline for more than a generation. This community, like much of state, is in a period of economic transition dictated by an emerging global economy. The county is moving toward the creation of a more diverse economy.
The good news is that this movement is gaining momentum. The progress toward bringing more jobs into the community, including living-wage jobs, is partly due to hard work on the part of community leaders. It's also due to increasing educational opportunities in the county. Lower Columbia College and Washington State University's Vancouver campus are probably the most important tools at our disposal to grow living-wage jobs and the overall local economy.
Washingtonians can bemoan the so-called outsourcing of high-paying jobs and other factors that have depressed wages. But that won't change economic trends. Globalization is a fact of life. People here and around the state now must compete in a global economy. Education can prepare workers for that competition. Improving K-12 instruction and making sure every qualified high school graduate in our community can pursue a higher education will be critical to growing a diverse local economy and creating more living-wage jobs.
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