 A factory worker assembles Honda Motor Co. Pilot sports utility vehicles (SUV) doors on the assembly line at Honda Manufacturing of Alabama LLC facility in Lincoln, Alabama, U.S., on Tuesday, August 12, 2014. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg By Jim Tankersley Philadonna Wade works the night shift at the Detroit Chassis plant in Avon, Ohio, finishing off truck axles before they ship off to one of the big Ford factories nearby. It is heavier work than her last job, which was stocking shelves at a Family Dollar store, and Wade says it's helping her get in shape. "I enjoy the job, I enjoy the people I work with," she said in an interview recently. "But the thing is, when you go to a job, it's not about enjoying the people you work with, it's about earning more for your family." At the plant, Wade has the sort of job that Americans often associate with a blue-collar American Dream. But she's paid more like a low-level service worker: $9.50 an hour, with no benefits. She is officially a temporary worker, sourced through a staffing agency, and she doesn't earn nearly enough to feed, clothe and house her four children. Taxpayers help her make up the difference. "I get energy assistance, I get food stamps, I get Medicaid," she said. "Every bit of public assistance there is, I get it." Wade's experience is surprisingly common for lower-skilled manufacturing workers, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have concluded. In a new report out Tuesday, Ken Jacobs, Zohar Perla, Ian Perry and Dave Graham-Squire find that one-third of the families of "frontline manufacturing production workers" are enrolled in a government safety-net program. The families' benefits cost state and local governments about $10 billion a year on average from 2009 to 2013, the analysis found. |
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