[NJFAC] 73% of employees surveyed struggled to afford anything beyond basic living expenses

New research reveals financial stress is hurting the morale, motivation, and productivity of U.S. workers.

A recent survey by Resume Now reveals that financial stress has reached a breaking point for American workers, with 73% of employees struggling to afford anything beyond their basic living expenses. 

The 2025 Wage Reality Report reveals a growing dissatisfaction with salaries, rising living costs, and the toll these challenges are taking on workplace morale. Based on responses from 1,065 U.S. workers surveyed in December 2024, the report sheds light on the widening gap between wages and the cost of modern living.

So, what are the real impacts of this financial stress on workers' lives, and how are they coping with the challenges of rising costs and stagnant wages?

Key Findings

• 12% often cannot afford basic living expenses, and 24% struggle to cover essentials.
• Only 6% are able to save for the future.
• One-third of workers say their salary has not kept up with inflation.
• 55% think their salary is lower than it should be.
• 29% have moved to lower-cost areas or housing to navigate financial strain.
• 3 in 10 have taken on debt to cover living expenses.
• Only 4% of workers feel truly valued in their role.

 link from nakedcapitalism.com

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June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
http://www.njfac.org

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[NJFAC] Dean Baker on the importance of low unemployment

Full Employment: One Last Time for the Road

"....There is no better way to give large benefits to tens of millions of people, especially groups facing discrimination in the labor market like Black workers and people with criminal records.....

In the Biden years, many pundits argued that unemployment doesn't matter much because a one percentage point drop in the unemployment rate just means another 1.6 million people have jobs. That doesn't seem like a very big deal in a workforce of 160 million.

But this reasoning is badly confused. Full employment matters not just because it reduces the number of people who are unable to find jobs, but also because it improves the bargaining position of tens of millions of workers. The point is simple, but huge.

In a normal month 5-6 million people lose or leave their job, with the vast majority looking for new ones. That translates into 60-70 million people over the course of the year coming into direct contact with the state of the labor market. For these people it matters enormously if there is a strong labor market near full employment or a sagging labor market where people struggle to find jobs.

In a strong labor market these workers will be able to move to better jobs that pay more and offer better working conditions. It's not an accident that we saw a record level of workplace satisfaction in 2023 after we had record rates of job switches the prior year.

The ability to leave for a better job also leaves workers better positioned to get pay raises at their current job, if they decide not to leave. This is especially true for workers at the lower end of the wage distribution. They have far more bargaining power than in a weak labor market.....

The Black-White wage gap was also reduced during this period. The 13 percent gap in 2023  is the lowest level on record....."

ps In the article, Baker calls it "low" unemployment, a far better description than full employment, at a time when the lows of 3.4 to 4.0% unemployment mean that in December 2024, for example, when the official rate was 4.1%, 6.9 million people were unemployed and another 9.9 million were involuntarily part-time or wanting a job but not looking for a variety of reasons, including discouragement, or lack of childcare or transportation. And these numbers do not indicate the economic distress of the wider circle which includes their families. jz

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June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
http://www.njfac.org

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[NJFAC] Working Without Health Insurance

Chronic Condition: Working Without Health Insurance

Jan 10, 2025 By Emma Curchin, John Schmitt, CEPR

...."...even after the full implementation of the ACA, more than 27 million US residents still remain without health insurance.¹ As we document here, almost 16 million of the uninsured are workers in full-time jobs, part-time jobs, or unemployed and actively seeking work. Over 10 million of these uninsured workers hold year-round, full-time jobs.

Workers between the ages of 18 and 64 have long been less likely than the average US resident to have health insurance (see Figure 1). Many workers fall through the holes in the patchwork of health insurance coverage, which includes employer-provided plans, individually purchased coverage through state-level health exchanges, and Medicaid (which is especially important for low-income workers). The vast majority of workers are ineligible for key government health insurance programs that provide higher rates of coverage for other populations. Workers under the age of 65, for example, are not eligible for the Medicare program, which provides nearly universal coverage for the US population 65 and older. Workers are also generally too old to qualify for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which, together with Medicaid, produces uninsured rates for children that are about half those of adult workers.² Finally, a sizable share of the workforce lives in households with incomes that push them above the thresholds where they would qualify for Medicaid and other forms of need-based coverage.....

As the data show, some groups of workers are much more likely than others to be uninsured. Workers who experience any spell of unemployment during the course of a year are the most likely to be without insurance (18.7 percent), followed by part-time or part-year workers (14.4 percent). But even a large share of full-time, full-year workers (10.5 percent) go without any health insurance coverage from any source during the course of the year.....

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June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
http://www.njfac.org

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[NJFAC] "salting" the workplace

"What Is Salting, the Organizing Tactic Spicing Up the Labor Movement?" [Kim Kelly, Teen Vogue]. "The resurgence of the American labor movement is being led in no small part by a cohort of young, diverse, fired-up workers around the country. Union density remains embarrassingly low overall, but last month the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, released some genuinely inspiring numbers that suggest the perceived upswing in union activity is more than just a vibe. During the 2024 fiscal year, which ended in September, the number of union petitions filed jumped 27% compared with 2023 — and was more than double what the agency received in 2021. Why does this matter? Basically, filing these petitions is a concrete sign that more people are trying to unionize their workplaces… This new generation of organizers is embracing all sorts of strategies, including one of the oldest tactics in the pro-union handbook: salting. Salting is an organizing tactic in which a person gets a job at a specific workplace with the goal of unionizing their coworkers. This kind of shop-floor organizing has a long history within the labor movement, and was once so common it was thoroughly unremarkable; if you were a young worker with socialist or progressive ideas in, say, the early 1900s, it was the most normal thing in the world to start talking to your coworkers about unionizing as soon as you'd learned their names." • It's great that Teen Vogue has a labor beat, but why only Teen Vogue? quote from nakedcapitalism.com

June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
http://www.njfac.org

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