September 14, 2021

The PBS NewsHour has some terrific reporting on an important topic: the job market for the two-thirds of working-age adults who don’t have a college degree.

The problem facing many of them is that, despite their hard work, they will earn much less over their lifetimes than college graduates. In stories for the NewsHour, Paul Solman highlights the opportunities available to workers without degrees at a time that many employers are scrambling to find smart, energetic people to fill good-paying jobs with benefits in light manufacturing and the skilled trades.

Women of color are catching on and entering fields like carpentry and plumbing – in fact, they are over-represented in the trades. But Solman talked to employers early this year who cannot find enough young adults willing to consider working in the trades.

This new NewsHour video (above) features IBM, which has to compete for employees with flashy firms like Apple and Google. IBM created an internship program to train people like Reinaldo Rodriguez for “new-collar jobs” that don’t require a bachelor’s degree. The former supervisor for a drug store chain that cut his pay after he was promoted now works in an IBM electronics lab.

Opportunities like these pay enough for people to support their families. And they are a great alternative to borrowing a lot of money for a bachelor’s degree that won’t necessarily guarantee a job. …Learn More

July 29, 2021

The Affordable Care Act gives a carrot to states that expand Medicaid from a health insurance program mainly for poor people to one that also includes low-income workers.

Under the 2010 law, the federal government initially paid the full cost of adding more people to the Medicaid rolls, and a large majority of states have signed up. The federal funding for new expansions dropped a bit in 2020 to 90 percent and will remain there.

Yet 11 states are holdouts and haven’t expanded their programs, leaving nearly 2.2 million workers and family caregivers in what the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities calls the Medicaid coverage gap.

The workers falling in the gap, who would qualify for coverage if their states expanded Medicaid, do not have health insurance at their places of employment and can’t afford to buy subsidized insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

The bulk of the uncovered workers are in the South, with half in Texas and Florida. Missouri had been a holdout. But last week, the Missouri Supreme Court ordered the legislature to comply with a voter ballot initiative and fund expansion of the state’s Medicaid. Expansion was also controversial in Oklahoma, but it went into effect on July 1 after voters there approved the measure.

An analysis by the Center sketched a picture of who is in the gap, based on 2019 Medicaid data, the most recent available. People of color comprised about 40 percent of the working-age population but made up 60 percent of the people in the gap in the non-expansion states, the Center estimates.

Nationwide, one in four who lack access to Medicaid are lower-paid essential workers on the front lines during the pandemic. …Learn More

Research

August 20, 2020

Irregular hours, last-minute schedule changes, and rotating shifts are now a fixture of the work world.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Gig economy workers often tout the appeal of having the freedom to set a schedule that suits their lifestyle. In reality, many workers with unpredictable schedules, notably in retail and in lower-paid and part-time jobs, do not determine when they work. Their schedules are set by their employers.

These jobs can be hard for anyone to juggle. Arranging childcare on an irregular schedule is a good example. But workers with disabilities face unique challenges, because they often need special arrangements, such as a caretaker to help them get ready for work or an accessible van to transport them.

This would suggest that it’s important to work for employers who give them predictable schedules. In fact, a new study of workers in their 20s and early 30s with disabilities found they more often have irregular schedules than the young adults who do not have disabilities.

Here are some of their specific findings. A larger share of the workers with disabilities told the U.S. Census their work hours varied, and their hours swung more widely from week to week than people without disabilities. Consistent with this, young adult workers with disabilities reported in a second survey – the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth – that they are less likely to have regular schedules.

They are also more likely to have jobs with rotating shifts – an employer might assign the 5 a.m.-1 p.m. shift one day and the 1 p.m.-9 p.m. shift the next. Further, rotating shifts have become more common in recent decades, the researchers found. …Learn More