Lost Middle-Class Jobs Being Replaced by Burger-Flipping and Retail Gigs: NELP Study

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/lost-middle-class-jobs-being-replaced-burger-flipping-164535060.html




By Aaron Task | Daily Ticker – 6 hours ago


There's been a lot of talk in recent years about the "hollowing out" of the American middle class. A new study by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) confirms the troubling trend.
NELP broke down jobs into low/ middle/and high-wage groups based on median incomes. Looking at the period from early 2008 through the first quarter of 2012, the study found:
"High-wage" occupations accounted for 19% of the jobs lost during the Great Recession and 20% of the jobs gained during the recovery.
"Mid-wage" occupations suffered 60% of job losses during the recession but only 22% of the growth during the recovery.
"Low-wage" occupations accounted for 21% of the losses and a whopping 58% of the growth.
In other words, NELP found what many Americans already know: The market for middle class jobs has shrunk and most of the jobs that have been created during the recession are in low-income areas like retail and food services.
"In short, America's good jobs deficit continues," NELP said in a summary of the study. "Policymakers have understandably been focused on the urgent goal of getting U.S. employment back to where it was before the recession…but our findings underscore that job quality is rapidly emerging as a second front in the struggling economy."

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