“It Is Truly a Struggle to Survive”: The Hardships of Living on Low Wages

Abstract

Many low-wage workers struggle to make ends meet despite working full-time. Surveys find that they confront material, financial, and medical hardships. This article presents hospital workers’ descriptions of living on low wages, giving voice to their fears and challenges. These workers ( N = 156) testified to a city council-created Wage Review Committee, which posted the testimonies online. We qualitatively content-analyzed the testimonies to identify and describe their struggles. Hospital workers’ testimonies brought depth and new understanding to arguments for raising wages. Low-wage workers can be effective advocates for their own interests.

History of Low Hourly Wage and All-Cause Mortality Among Middle-aged Workers

“…A recent report estimated that 44% of all wage and salaried workers aged 18 through 64 years earn a low hourly wage, with a low-wage worker defined as earning less than two-thirds the median wages of full-time workers. 8 This sizeable group of workers are among the most vulnerable in the workforce 9 ; they disproportionately work jobs characterized by limited workplace flexibility, low job control, and minimal (if any) health and financial benefits 8,10,11 ; and experience the highest exposure to workplace hazards, [12][13][14] job stress, 15,16 employment volatility, 17 and exploitation, [18][19][20] which are all established risk factors for poor physical and mental health outcomes. 6,[21][22][23][24] Focusing on wages extends the literature on SES and mortality in 2 important ways.…”

Moving Beyond Poverty: Effects of Low-Wage Work on Individual, Social, and Family Well-Being

“…In 2007, Families in Society published a special issue “Working but Poor: New Directions for Social Workers” (see Fogel, 2007), highlighting the importance of a social work perspective in broader societal discussions of how best to address income inequality and support the working poor. The articles in the special section of the current issue were received in response to a call for submissions around a similar theme chosen to continue to promote social work research in this area, “Moving Beyond Poverty: Effects of Low-wage Work on Individual, Social, and Family Well-being.” These articles illustrate a number of the challenges facing low-wage workers in the United States and effects of their low wages on their individual and family well-being, including the need to work multiple jobs to make ends meet (Scott et al, 2020); the relationship between wages and material hardship (Collyer, 2020); the effects of low-wages on worker well-being in a particular context (Karger, 2020); the effects of low wages on caregiver distress, parenting, and child behavior (Campbell & Houser, 2020); low-wage workers’ descriptions of their hardships in public testimony (Wexler et al, 2020); and parental strategies to address financial hardships among low-wage workers with relatively good jobs (Ballentine et al, 2020). We briefly describe the contributions made by each and then conclude by encouraging social work researchers to continue to explore and document the experiences of low-wage workers and their families to provide useful evidence for the promotion of equity and individual, social, and family well-being.…”