Five years after enduring a deep recession, the Illinois economy is once again generating jobs. But the current economic recovery poses a paradox: Where economic expansion has historically been accompanied by falling poverty rates, state expenditures on public benefits programs to help working families make ends meet have been growing. Because many of the jobs being created pay wages too low to support families, year-round workers are turning to public-support programs to make ends meet. This public support for year-round workers and their families is the hidden cost of low-wage
Nik Theodore
Workplace Safety in Atlanta's Construction Industry: Institutional Failure in Temporary Staffing Arrangements
Data on workplace injuries, safety concerns, and provisions for safety
equipment and job training suggest that workers supplied by temporary staffing
agencies to building and construction contractors in the Atlanta metro area work in
substandard safety conditions. Agency-supplied temps cite inadequate job training
and insufficient provisions for safety equipment as reasons for their safety concerns.
Temporary agency workers in Atlanta’s building and construction industry
experience substandard safety conditions in part because non-standard employment
Measuring the Performance of Job Trainers Under WIA: Results of a Survey of Chicago Providers
The Workforce Investment Act (WIA), signed into law in August 1998, overhauls the federal job training system that has been in place for more than 15 years. WIA replaces the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) with block grants to states for the provision of employment services to job seekers. Expanded state and local control over the design, implementation, and evaluation of the new workforce investment system is a core component of the Act, and state and local Workforce Investment Boards will be responsible for tailoring the system to local needs.
Chicago's Undocumented Immigrants: An Analysis of Wages, Working Conditions, and Economic Contributions
Undocumented immigrants are strongly committed to working in the United States and they make significant contributions to the economy. Undocumented workers account for approximately 5% of the Chicago metro area labor market and represent a growing segment of the low-wage workforce. Undocumented immigrants earn low wages, work in unsafe conditions, and have low rates of health insurance.
From the "New Localism" to the "Spaces of Neoliberalism"
In recent decades, the notion of a “revival of the local” has attracted widespread attention from academics and policy-makers. In contrast to the pervasive naturalization of national states, national economies, and national societies that prevailed during much of the Fordist-Keynesian period, localities and places are now back on the agenda across the political spectrum and within numerous strands of socialscientific analysis.
Cities and the Geographies of Actually Existing Neoliberalism
An essay elaborating a critical geographical perspective on neoliberalism that
emphasizes (a) the path-dependent character of neoliberal reform projects and (b)
the strategic role of cities in the contemporary remaking of political-economic space.
Social Security Admistration's No-Match Letter Program: Implications for Immigration Enforcement and Worker's Rights
The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) began its employer “no-match letter” program to help properly allocate the billions of dollars of contributions collected from workers with incorrectly filed Social Security numbers (SSNs). Under the program, SSA sends letters to employers every year that identify the Social Security numbers of employees who do not match names or numbers in SSA’s records.
On the Corner: Day Labor in the United States
This report profiles, for the first time, the national phenomenon of day labor in the United
States. Men and women looking for employment in open-air markets by the side of the road, at
busy intersections, in front of home improvement stores and in other public spaces are ubiquitous
in cities across the nation. The circumstances that give rise to this labor market are complex and
poorly understood. In this report, data is analyzed from the National Day Labor Survey, the first
systematic and scientific study of the day-labor sector and its workforce in the United States.
Raising and Maintaining the Value of the State Minimum Wage: An Economic Impact Study of Illinois
The economic boom of the 1990s is rightly noted for lifting the wages of the vast
majority of Illinois workers. But for all its force, the boom failed to reverse the long-term
decline in the spending power of low-income households, particularly those reliant on
minimum and near-minimum wage earners. Although the nominal value of the federal
minimum wage is at an all-time high of $5.15 per hour, failure to adjust it for inflation
has led real hourly wages of minimum and near-minimum wage workers to erode to a
level near their all- time low.
Persistent Unemployment in Illinois: The Case For Reauthorizing Federal Temporary Extended Unemploment Compensation Benefits
November 2003 marked two years of recovery for the U.S. economy. Government reports have trumpeted the good news: growth in the gross domestic product reached its highest level in nearly two decades, businesses are investing again, and exports edged up slightly.