Study says most new Nevada jobs don’t support families

Brian Seals

Friday, Dec. 11, 1998 | 11:54 a.m.

A booming Nevada economy in recent years has created jobs, but those jobs aren't paying a liveable wage.

That's the message from a new study by the Massachusetts-based National Priorities Project and the Washington, D.C.-based Jobs with Justice.

The report analyzed the country's fastest growing job fields and calculated what it called liveable wages in each state.

The fastest growing jobs in the country are generally service industry jobs, and those jobs aren't paying enough to support families, the report said. Workers like cashiers, waiters and waitresses, nursing aides and retail clerks are in occupations with high growth rates and that don't pay liveable wages, the report said.

Conversely, workers like teachers, computer analysts and registered nurses are in growing fields that do pay well.

"The central message here is when you look at job growth in America, it's not the amount of jobs we're creating, but the kind of jobs we're creating," said NPP spokeswoman Stacy Roth. "The kind of jobs we're creating aren't creating opportunities for working people."

The result is that families may make enough to get by, but have nothing left for savings or unexpected expenses.

In Nevada -- despite a major union presence -- the report estimates that 54 percent of new jobs pay less than 50 percent of the livable wage for a family of four and 22 percent of the new jobs pay less than 50 percent of the livable wage for a family of three.

The report estimates an adequate wage for a family of four in Nevada would be $33,262 annually. For a family of three, the state's liveable wage would be $30,774, the groups said.

Locally, Marlene Richter, director of social services for Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, sees examples every day of working people who are financially strained. She said the majority of that organization's clients are working people who are hit with an unexpected bill, such as a doctor's bill. They then have to decide what to delay and what to pay first.

"They try to delay one thing to pay another and it starts to catch up," Richter said.

Despite Southern Nevada's much ballyhooed economy, the number of such people seeking help from Catholic Charities continues to increase. Richter said the number of people seeking help has increased from 8,000 just two years ago to about 30,000 this year.

"Our numbers just keep going beyond anything we planned for," Richter said.

Some of the remedies proposed in the national report to combat this trend include hikes in the minium wage and increased government spending for worker training.

Other remedies suggested in the report include "living wage" campaigns in which pro-labor groups ask local governments to use contractors and suppliers that pay a certain wage.

The report cites an effort in Los Angeles in which the city council voted to require a $7.25 minimum wage to workers at such companies.

Another example is San Jose, Calif., which this week passed a law requiring city contractors to pay a minium $9.50 per hour if the company offers health insurance, and pay a $10.75 per hour rate if they do not offer health insurance. Detroit has implemented a similar measure, requiring companies that do business with the city to pay at least $7.70 if they offer health benefits and $9.63 if they don't.

In Nevada, wages for public construction projects are governed by the state's prevailing wage law. Those wage levels are set by the labor commissioner and based on annual surveys of wage rates.

Clark County Manager Dale Askew said the county has no policy regarding non-construction vendors doing business with the county and has not been approached about the issue. A spokeswoman for the city of Las Vegas said the same.

The report also emphasizes workers' rights to organize unions.

The Las Vegas Valley has a strong union presence that boosts pay scales for occupations that are traditionally viewed as low wage. The area's largest union, Culinary Union Local 226, represents more than 35,000 people in many of the traditionally low-wage occupations discussed in the report, such as food workers, waiters and waitresses and housekeepers.

Likewise, Teamsters Union Local 995, which represents a variety of occupations, recently won elections to represent retail clerks at the Excalibur hotel-casino and laundry workers at the Desert Inn hotel-casino. Organizer Rob Rovere echoed the finding of the reports, saying that many service jobs aren't paying a liveable wage.

"What we have seen is there may be more jobs, but they are not the kind of jobs you can support a family with unless its a union job," Rovere said. "How can you raise a family, pay health insurance and rent an apartment for $7 an hour?"

Union contracts get workers health insurance, something the report says many low-wage workers can't afford otherwise.

Another problem, Rovere said, is that management knows that these service industry workers can be quickly replaced. "They're not looking for long-term workers," he said.

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