Jobs ... with low wages

UPDATE: Briding the Gap is now online.

Alabama Arise, an advocacy group on behalf of low-income Alabamians, delivers some sobering economic news this morning. Its new report, Bridging the Gap, finds:

More than one-third of all working families in Alabama are low-income, earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty threshold.
Though employment opportunities are increasing, the majority of jobs available to working Alabamian are in low-wage sectors.
Alabama’s public policies have failed to make available to low-income workers the education, skills certification or training necessary to compete in a 21st-century economy.
Alabama’s budgeting and taxation processes have failed to provide the resources to support policies that can assist workers in meeting their families’ needs and place a disproportionate tax burden on low-income workers.

Its recommended corrections deserve attention:

Alabama should increase its need-based financial assistance for postsecondary education, with a target of providing assistance to at least 50 percent of those eligible. Until the state is able to provide full funding for need-based financial assistance, at least 25 percent of such assistance should be reserved for adult learners.
Alabama should modify its industrial tax credit statutes to require qualifying industries to target a certain percentage of newly created jobs toward low-income workers. The credits could increase according to the percentage of low-income workers hired beyond the targeted level.
To inform its citizens of the full costs and benefits of state economic development efforts, Alabama should require an industry-specific annual report of taxpayer-provided incentives and qualifying tax credits.
Alabama should modify its requirements for corporate tax credits to require that qualifying industries provide wages that equal the prevailing average Alabama wage and provide health insurance benefits.
Alabama should raise the income cap for Medicaid participation by working families to 130 percent of the federal poverty level (equal to the income cap for Food Stamps).
Alabama should raise the threshold for state income tax to the federal poverty level by modifying dependent and standard deductions. Those changes should be indexed to inflation to ensure ongoing tax fairness.

There's a lot to chew. Here's one takeaway to start with. The report finds:

For most of this decade, Alabama’s unemployment rate has been consistently below the national average. With job opportunities increasing, and an unemployment rate that approached full employment levels, one would expect Alabamians to enjoy an increase in earnings, but that has not been the case for the average worker. The median household income for Alabama declined by 5 percent between 2000-01 and 2004-05, falling from $39,797 to $37,502 in inflation-adjusted dollars.
The saying "The rich get richer while the poor get poorer" rings especially true in Alabama. The state ranks 7th worst in the nation in terms of income inequality, with the income limit for those in the bottom quintile at $24,388 and the threshold for the top quintile at $89,513.
(Emphasis added.)

While this low-wage problem is acute in Alabama, other states are feeling the pain. Expect this to become a major theme in the 2008 presidential election.