Publications on Workplace & Industry Studies

This brief examines the size and characteristics of the low-wage workforce and whether low-wage workers experience wage growth. We define low-wage workers as workers whose hourly wage rates are so low that even if they worked full-time, full-year their annual earnings would fall below the poverty line for a family of four. This wage rate is $8.63 in 2001, equivalent to $10.50 in 2008. Almost one-third of all workers ages 16 to 64 are low-wage workers in 2001. From 2001 to 2003, we find some evidence that low-wage workers are moving to higher wage jobs. But, the majority of low-wage workers either remain in low-wage jobs or are not working at all.

Work-Life Policies, a new Urban Institute Press book, explains that even the most generous policy does little to accommodate workers' outside responsibilities if a job's structure or colleagues' attitudes undermine the policy. Work-Life Policies details the latest research—from sociologists, psychologists, lawyers, and management scholars—and underscores the importance of tailoring effective accommodations for all employees: male or female, parents or childless, salaried or hourly, near the end of one's career or new to the workforce.

Employment is now less physically demanding and less likely to entail difficult working conditions than before, a trend that might spur employment at older ages. However, the shift to a knowledge-based economy has increased cognitive demands and placed a premium on mastering the latest technical skills. Between 1971 and 2006 the share of workers in cognitively demanding jobs (requiring such skills as reasoning, writing, and decisionmaking) increased from 25.7 to 34.8 percent. This development may curtail opportunities for older workers with limited education or those who lack recent training.

Boomers will probably want to work longer than earlier cohorts, but their continued work requires that employers hire and retain them. Employers value older workers for their maturity, experience and work ethic, but worry about out of date skills and high costs. Slower overall labor supply growth will increase demand for older workers and occupations with higher shares of older workers will increase modestly as a share of all jobs. Future jobs will require less physical demands and more cognitive and interpersonal skills, trends that favor educated older workers, but job opportunities for less educated older workers may remain limited.

The occupations that already employ above-average shares of workers age 55 and older rely on an educated workforce and are expected to grow at least 20 percent by 2016, double the 10 percent rate forecast for the national labor force. A new study examines how changes in the nature of work, different occupations, the characteristics of older workers, and overall labor force growth might affect future job prospects for older Americans.