(Athens)County leads state in people working, but still poor

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Orange and Brown
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(Athens)County leads state in people working, but still poor

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By David DeWitt


Athens County truly is the “working poor” capital of Ohio. The latest available U.S. Census figures show that Athens has the highest percentage in the state of employed civilians working in service occupations and the lowest percentage of those employed in manufacturing. With service-industry jobs paying minimum wage or only slightly above it, the financial hardships of many living in this area are severe.
Athens County Job & Family Services Director Jack Frech said Friday that Athens has had this distinction of a relatively low unemployment rate, but a high poverty rate, for more than 30 years.

“It’s because the jobs here tend to either be decent-paying government jobs, or service-industry jobs,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of jobs in between… So there are a lot of people in Athens County who are working, but poor.”

With the state average of civilians working in manufacturing at 17 percent, Athens comes in at 5.6 percent. Meanwhile, Athens has 25.1 percent of workers in service occupations, while the state average is at 16.5 percent.

Frech said that 30 years ago almost any job would at least support a family. But back then the area had manufacturing and coal-mining jobs available.

“That’s just not true anymore,” he said. “You have people out there working full-time. If you have a couple people to support in your family on minimum wage, you’re not going to make it. You’re going to be poor.”

This challenges the assumption in the public-policy debate that people on welfare don’t work, he said. Most of these people are working, he said; they just remain so poor that they still qualify for various forms of welfare.

Numbers from the ACJFS show that in May 2010 Athens County had 9,945 people on food stamps and 11,178 on Medicaid. Ohio had 1,619,992 on food stamps and 2,012,008 on Medicaid. These numbers are up from 2006, when Athens County averaged 7,235 on food stamps per month and 10,673 on Medicaid.

“My guess is that when you go out and talk to folks at convenient stores, people who are clerks, you’re going to find that most of them, if they have any kids, are very likely to still be on Medicaid for their kids,” he said. “Some of them, depending on how big their family is, are still going to be on food stamps.”Not as many people are on cash welfare anymore, he said, because the amount they would receive is so low – around $300 to $400 per month – that if someone has any job at all they are likely to make more. In order to receive cash welfare, a person’s income has to be below half of the federal poverty level. For a family of three, income would have to be below $10,000 per year, Frech said.

He pointed out that in addition to service-industry jobs paying lower than manufacturing or other occupations, they also don’t offer health benefits.

Another aspect of the situation is that the government extends Medicaid coverage to children up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, but only 90 percent for adults.

“We’ve got a lot of situations out there where these working poor folks have their kids on Medicaid… but they live in fear of a medical problem hurting one of the adults because as soon as they incur that medical bill they go into debt,” he said. “It’s as though we think we’re doing the kids a favor by covering them. But when we don’t cover the adults, we hurt the kids too.”

This situation, he said, should make leaders take a look at what the best public policy should be. He said the earned-income tax credit is one factor that helps, but it amounts to one lump-sum payment per year.

“It’s great to help pay the back-bills they owe, and pay down their credit cards, but it doesn’t help them pay the rent every month,” he said.

ACJFS spokesperson Nick Claussen pointed out that most service-industry jobs in the area are located in the city of Athens. But if someone is working a service-industry job, he or she probably can’t afford the rent in Athens, he said, and has to live somewhere else.

“That makes it hard on people here, too, because there’s no public transportation,” he said.

Frech said Athens County is one of few in the state that actually has an in-migration of people coming here to work.

“That’s because on any given day we have several thousand people coming over from Meigs County or from Hocking or Washington County, to work here,” he said. “Because we’re kind of a center of those service-industry jobs… We actually end up drawing workers in from those other counties even for these low-wage jobs. Because they don’t have any jobs at all in these other counties.”

U.S. Census figures from 2000 showed 4,552 workers come into Athens County to work, while 21,279 workers both lived and worked here. Figures also showed that 4,197 workers left Athens County to work, leaving a net gain of 355 workers.

With all of these commuters coming into the city of Athens, transportation becomes a huge expense, Frech said.

Also, with such a large pool of people, including residents of other counties and temporary residents of Athens such as Ohio University students, all competing for the same service-industry jobs, Frech said, wages don’t go up.

“You have too large of a supply of labor,” he said. “We’ve always had a ready supply of people who are willing to go out and do the minimum-wage jobs.”

This is the second article in a series focused on working people facing financial hardship in Athens County. This is the story of residents who have had to take on low-wage jobs to make ends meet, and the difficulties they face. This story focuses on the high number of area residents employed in the service industry.

A future article in this series will focus on the public policy implications of this situation.


philbilly
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Re: (Athens)County leads state in people working, but still

Post by philbilly »

I am afraid that this entire country is about to become like Athens county.


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Re: (Athens)County leads state in people working, but still

Post by LICKING COUNTY FAN »

It's a crying shame that these multi mill dollar companies like McDonalds, Wndy's and other places like this ask so much from those who work there, but pay them like crap.


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