Table I

Number of Poor Families in Labor Force and Percent
Having Two or More Wage Earners
by Color and Sex of Family Head

Source: Derived by H. L. Sheppard from Social Security table based on Mollie shansky's analysis of Bureau of the Census tabulations from the Current pulation Survey for March 1967, Social Security Administration, Research d Statistics Note, December 6, 1967. Numbers in first row do not add to 68 because of rounding.

D. Another way of estimating the size of the problem is to start with data on mber of earners in poor families, compiled by the Census for the Office of onomic Opportunity (OEO). If we tally all the members of poor families o earned and thus worked in 1966, the number adds to at least 6 million.

This number does not include unrelated individuals who were in the labor ce as of the same survey, which counted more than 1.3 million.

"herefore, using this approach to estimate the magnitude of the job problem, arrive at a figure of more than 7.3 million men and women who are labor e participants and yet are poor. At least 6 million are members of families 1.3 million are unrelated individuals. Most of them are employed, but still not earn enough to raise their families or themselves out of poverty.

Occupations and Poverty

March 1967, there were nearly 3.3 million heads of poor families who were e labor force, of all ages and in all sections of the country. This figure does nclude persons who were not members of families or other family members in the labor force. Nearly 8 percent of these 3.3 million were unemployed e time of the March 1967 survey, with the greatest percentage of them male s of white families.

Table II reveals how these poor family heads were distributed in terms of occupation, color, and sex.

Table II

Distribution of Poor Family Heads in the Labor Force
by Occupation, Color, and Sex

Source: Derived by H. L. Sheppard from Social Security table based on Mollie Orshansky's analysis of Bureau of the Census tabulations from the Current Population Survey for March 1967, Social Security Administration, Research and Statistics Note, December 6, 1967.

Note: Based on 3,268,000 heads of poor families who were members of the labor force in March 1967.Rows and columns may not add to 100.0 percent because of rounding.

Eleven percent of all the poor family heads at that time were white males employed as operatives; seven percent were nonwhite males working as laborers. Approximately 3.5 percent were nonwhite female heads employed as private household workers (about 36 percent of all poor nonwhite female heads in the labor force were in this occupation).

Taking the total group "dissected" in that table, the three largest occupational egories of the employed poor family heads were operatives (nearly 20 pert); service workers (nearly 18 percent); and laborers (slightly more than percent)—totaling 54 percent of all the poor family heads in the labor force. When we add the unemployed to this list, the percentage adds up to 62 pert—that is, more than three-fifths (about 2 million) of all the labor force nbers who are heads of poor families are either operatives, service workers, rers, or unemployed.

ut these low-level occupations (and unemployment situations) are not ributed evenly among the labor force poor. While more than three-fifths The total group are in these categories, less than one-half of the male white ily heads (they are still the biggest single group as far as size goes-about 000) are in these low-level jobs or are unemployed. Nearly 70 percent of ale heads of white families (265,000), 75 percent of male nonwhites 9,000), and more than 80 percent of female nonwhites (258,000) are er operatives, service workers, laborers, or unemployed.

Industries of the Working Poor

erty is not strictly a matter of occupation, region, or family status; it is also ed to the type of industry in which a breadwinner is employed. Unfortuy, the official government data pertaining to the characteristics of those w the accepted poverty line (based on income, location, and family size) ot report the industry distribution of the poor. However, in a recent article arry Bluestone,1 some of the industries having at least 40 percent of their oyees earning below a relatively low wage for all nonsupervisory employees Pulated at $2.25 per hour or less by Bluestone-are listed as shown in ≥ III.

w-Wage Industries and the Working Poor," Poverty and Human Resources AbVol. III, No. 2 (March-April 1968).

6 0-72 pt. 5 47

Table III

Industries in Which 40 Percent or More of Workers
Earned Less Than $2.25 per Hour

Source: Industry Wage Surveys, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor, 1962-66.

It should be kept in mind, when assessing these several million worke employed at less than $2.25 per hour, that:

1. The list is not exhaustive; it refers only to selected industries, and with. them, just the ones in which at least 40 percent of the employees earned less than the cited hourly wage.

. There is no indication in the data as to number of weeks worked full time per year; in other words, it would be misleading to assume that we are talking in every instance about an annual wage income of $4,500 ($2.25 x 2,000 hours).

. On the other hand, the data in the table do not tell us whether or not other members of the workers' families are also employed, and thus the extent to which total family income (relative to region and size of family) is above or below the poverty line.

evertheless, it is clear that certain industries have substantial numbers of and women whose earned incomes keep them below the level of a decent me, and who may therefore be considered as underemployed. In hospitals, ing homes, laundries, and restaurants alone we can be sure that most of 2 million or so workers earning less than $2.25 are in this category.

Location of Poor Workers

064, among all production workers in manufacturing industries (number2.6 million), 47 percent earned less than $2.20 per hour. But in the South ercent were below this figure; 49 percent in the Northeast; 36 percent in North Central region; and only 26 percent in the West.

irty-five percent of all production workers earning less than $2.20 lived e South. However, if we concentrate only on workers earning less than per hour in 1964, we find that the South had 47 percent of them. (Keep nd also that 63 percent of the nation's poor rural families are in the South.)

these lower wage production workers earning under $1.60 per hour in the Northeast region contained 30 percent; the North Central region, 19 t; and the West, only 4 percent.2

ong poor families with a head working even year round on a full-time more than one-half of all of them are in the South (although that region ss than 30 percent of all families whose heads have year-round full-time Among unrelated individuals working year round full time, the South percent of the poverty-income jobs, but less than one-fourth of all of untry's year-round full-time jobs occupied by unrelated individuals. The east region also is overrepresented among poor unrelated individuals. IV gives regional comparisons.

Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstracts of the United States, 1967, Table 238.