Economic Trends in NC

An op-ed piece in yesterday's issue of The News & Observer dissected the economic trends buffeting working families in North Carolina. Written by the NC Justice Center and the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the piece focuses on one of the South's persistent problems, low-wage work.

Regardless of whether the nation technically is in a recession, working families most definitely are. Since the 2001 recession, North Carolina has lost, on balance, more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs, a traditional source of living-wage employment for individuals without post-secondary degrees.

This has occurred alongside rapid growth in the low-wage labor market. Less than one out of every four jobs in North Carolina pays more than $17 an hour and offers both employer-provided health and retirement benefits, according to an analysis by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

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Our next president will have to address both the immediate problems stemming from the recession and the longer-term problems associated with the loss of good jobs. Ideally, the policies that combat the recession in the short term could also help counteract the larger problem of low-wage work.