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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Work-Based Social Support In The United States: Limits And New Possibilities, Heather Boushey, Chris Tilly
Work-Based Social Support In The United States: Limits And New Possibilities, Heather Boushey, Chris Tilly
Center for Social Policy Publications
The U.S. social policy framework has always relied on private employers to fill in the gaps for workers, rather than the state. U.S. workers have neither a strong social safety net outside of the labor market, nor an extensive social welfare structure supporting the labor market. For the most part, adequate provision of social benefits depends critically on employers’ voluntary adoption of support policies. For example, the U.S. has neither a universal health plan nor a requirement that employers provide health insurance coverage; the U.S. public system of old-age pensions is work-based, and that public system falls short unless supplemented …
America’S Biggest Low-Wage Industry: Continuity And Change In Retail Jobs, Françoise Carré, Chris Tilly
America’S Biggest Low-Wage Industry: Continuity And Change In Retail Jobs, Françoise Carré, Chris Tilly
Center for Social Policy Publications
For those concerned with job quality in the United States, the retail industry commands attention. Retail is not only the largest low-wage industry in the country’s economy; it is the largest industry, period. It generates numerous entry level jobs for those with limited formal training. Hourly wages of nonsupervisory workers in retail languish at about three-quarters the national average. Retail is a very important employer of young workers. Its workforce is also disproportionately female. Women are concentrated in particular retail sub-sectors and some minority groups seem to remain employed in retail over time. At the same time, retail jobs—at least, …
Fits & Starts: The Difficult Path For Working Single Parents, Rebecca Loya, Ruth J. Liberman, Randy Albelda, Elisabeth Babcock
Fits & Starts: The Difficult Path For Working Single Parents, Rebecca Loya, Ruth J. Liberman, Randy Albelda, Elisabeth Babcock
Center for Social Policy Publications
With dramatic shifts in the economy in recent years, it has become increasingly difficult for families to move into or stay in the middle class without access to higher education and skills training. Government-sponsored work supports help by providing direct assistance to working families to meet basic needs, such as child care, food, and housing. Yet, many supports do not reach low-wage working families in Massachusetts because of low eligibility thresholds, inadequate funding, limited availability, limited awareness, and numerous barriers to accessing such supports. Even for low-wage workers who do receive key work supports, such as subsidized child care and …
Parenting From Prison: Family Relationships Of Incarcerated Women In Massachusetts, Erika Kates, Sylvia Mignon, Paige Ransford
Parenting From Prison: Family Relationships Of Incarcerated Women In Massachusetts, Erika Kates, Sylvia Mignon, Paige Ransford
Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy
Historically in the United States, there has been little concern about the needs of incarcerated women and their family members, especially children. This began to change with the tremendous increase in the number of incarcerated women. The rate of women’s incarceration increased dramatically during the 1980s and today the number of female inmates continues to rise faster than the number of male inmates. In 1986, 19,812 women were incarcerated in the United States and this number rose in 1991 to 38,796. Today, over 112,000 women are incarcerated in state or federal facilities (Sabol et al., 2007; Snell 1994). While in …
Call To Action: A Pay Equity Resource Guide, Kacie Kelly
Call To Action: A Pay Equity Resource Guide, Kacie Kelly
Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy
Women continue to enter the workforce at record levels and laws on the state and federal levels prohibit gender discrimination in the workplace. Yet employment discrimination persists and women’s wages remain lower than men’s wages for comparable positions and occupations. With the 2005 publication of GETTING EVEN: Why Women Don’t Get Paid as Much as Men and What To Do About It by Economist and former Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Murphy, the issue of wage equity is finally receiving the widespread and sustained attention it deserves.
This resource guide provides an overview of the issues related to the wage gap …
Continuity And Change In Low-Wage Work In U.S. Retail Trade, Françoise Carré, Chris Tilly, Brandynn Holgate
Continuity And Change In Low-Wage Work In U.S. Retail Trade, Françoise Carré, Chris Tilly, Brandynn Holgate
Center for Social Policy Publications
Retail work is undergoing significant change in the United States. To explore these changes, and their impacts in terms of turnover, skill levels, and other key workforce variables, we conducted 18 case studies of retail businesses. We spoke to employees from top corporate executives to frontline employees, visited stores, and reviewed HR statistics. This paper summarizes major findings from the study.
We start by stating the study’s key questions, principal findings from public data sources, and the study design. We then review field findings on patterns in job quality across four dimensions (schedules, compensation, duties, and turnover/training/mobility). We identify two …
Women’S Municipal Leadership In Massachusetts, Paige Ransford, Miriam Lazewatsky
Women’S Municipal Leadership In Massachusetts, Paige Ransford, Miriam Lazewatsky
Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy
The Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy (CWPPP) at UMass Boston’s McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies has been tracking the election of women at the municipal level in Massachusetts since 1996. In 2003, the Project expanded to include all New England states. CWPPP remains the only research center in the United States that regularly tracks women’s political representation at the local level.
Low-Wage Workers Really Feel The Squeeze, Randy Albelda
Low-Wage Workers Really Feel The Squeeze, Randy Albelda
Economics Faculty Publication Series
In the United States, it has been generally assumed that those who held a steady job could make ends meet but in today’s labor market nothing could be further from the truth. Workers in low-wage jobs can face double jeopardy: insufficient income to cover their basic needs and lack of access to job-related benefits to supplement their earnings. Public work supports — programs to help families fill basic needs such as health care, child care, food, and housing — can fill the gaps, and for many, they do. Still, in Massachusetts close to one out of every four individuals in …
Bridging The Gaps Between Earnings And Basic Needs In Massachusetts, Randy Albelda, Jennifer Shea
Bridging The Gaps Between Earnings And Basic Needs In Massachusetts, Randy Albelda, Jennifer Shea
Economics Faculty Publication Series
In the United States, it is generally assumed that people who hold a steady job are able to make ends meet. But, in today’s labor market, where nearly a quarter of jobs pay low wages and do not offer benefi ts such as health insurance and retirement plans, this could not be further from the truth for millions of workers and their families. In fact, most workers do not make ends meet on their wages alone. Even upper- and moderate-wage workers are not “self-suffi cient” in a literal sense, as most receive onthe-job benefi ts, such as employer-provided health insurance …