Retail Jobs Don’t Need to Be Bad. Here’s Proof.
- 6 years ago
Retail Jobs Don’t Need to Be Bad. Here’s Proof.
In the United States, 42 percent of retail workers earn a low hourly wage — defined as less than two-thirds of the median wage across the economy.
The high minimum wage in France — set at 68 percent of the median wage — is a critical tool preventing low pay among retail workers.
A survey of 1,100 retail workers published this month by the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal-leaning advocacy group, found
that only one in about 12 front-line retail workers were in jobs considered of high quality — meaning that they were employed full time, were paid at least $15 an hour and were offered health insurance and at least one form of paid leave.
Cashiers, near the bottom rung on the wage ladder, made more than $2 more per hour at big
food retailers in France like Carrefour than at similar American retailers like Walmart.
When I asked what change would most improve the lives of retail workers in the United States, Professor Carré
said the minimum wage, mandated or subsidized health care and mandated sick days made a big difference.
Universal child care — common in countries like France — also affects the labor supply, freeing mothers to seek full-time work.
The authors — the labor experts Françoise Carré of the University of Massachusetts, Boston,
and Chris Tilly of the University of California, Los Angeles — explored the wages and working conditions of retail workers in Germany, Britain and other industrialized nations.
Typically paying full-time employees less than $33,000 a year, well below the midpoint across the economy, retail jobs
have become the work of the lower class, the main source of support for Americans left behind by economic change.
But full-time workers in the United States sometimes fare no better: Retailers will cut their hours to avoid paying overtime.
In the United States, 42 percent of retail workers earn a low hourly wage — defined as less than two-thirds of the median wage across the economy.
The high minimum wage in France — set at 68 percent of the median wage — is a critical tool preventing low pay among retail workers.
A survey of 1,100 retail workers published this month by the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal-leaning advocacy group, found
that only one in about 12 front-line retail workers were in jobs considered of high quality — meaning that they were employed full time, were paid at least $15 an hour and were offered health insurance and at least one form of paid leave.
Cashiers, near the bottom rung on the wage ladder, made more than $2 more per hour at big
food retailers in France like Carrefour than at similar American retailers like Walmart.
When I asked what change would most improve the lives of retail workers in the United States, Professor Carré
said the minimum wage, mandated or subsidized health care and mandated sick days made a big difference.
Universal child care — common in countries like France — also affects the labor supply, freeing mothers to seek full-time work.
The authors — the labor experts Françoise Carré of the University of Massachusetts, Boston,
and Chris Tilly of the University of California, Los Angeles — explored the wages and working conditions of retail workers in Germany, Britain and other industrialized nations.
Typically paying full-time employees less than $33,000 a year, well below the midpoint across the economy, retail jobs
have become the work of the lower class, the main source of support for Americans left behind by economic change.
But full-time workers in the United States sometimes fare no better: Retailers will cut their hours to avoid paying overtime.