Opportunity at Work: Improving Job Quality
This paper describes the state of job quality in the U.S. today and makes the case that improving job quality is a critical part of the agenda for reducing poverty, supporting families, rewarding effort, and expanding opportunity for all. It is part of Opportunity at Work, CLASP's (Center for Law and Social Policy) job quality initiative. Low-quality jobs impose substantial costs on workers, families, government programs, and society. We no longer allow companies to reduce costs by polluting the air and water. Likewise, the author contends, we should not allow them to do so by providing substandard jobs and leaving it to workers, families, and communities to pay the price.
Bad jobs are often equated with low-wage jobs, and wages certainly are an essential part of job quality. But higher wages are not enough to achieve even the limited public policy goal of increasing income if the conditions of work make it hard for people to stay employed consistently. Job quality affects almost every aspect of life, from health and family well-being to economic security. Along with wages and earnings, CLASP's working definition of job quality considers benefits, job security, advancement opportunities, work schedule, health and safety, and fairness and worker voice. While this list does not directly translate into a scheme for rating jobs, it does provide a framework for thinking about the elements that make some jobs better than others-and about what incentives public policy should create.
Measuring Job QualitySome aspects of job quality, such as work schedule and worker voice, are difficult to quantify without collecting extensive survey data. It is also hard to know what weight to give to each element of a job. Many agencies rely on hourly wages as a simple, easily measurable indicator of job quality, noting that many other aspects of job quality correlate with wages.
An ideal measure of job quality would reflect good wages and other job characteristics, after controlling for the characteristics of the worker. However, publicly available data do not allow for the calculation of such a measure. Joel Rogers of the Center on Wisconsin Strategies has suggested that turnover rates may be a useful proxy measure for job quality, as they pick up a set of good management practices that are difficult to measure directly. There is a great deal of variation in turnover rates even between companies in the same industries, and researchers have confirmed that high worker turnover is a strong indicator of lower-quality job ladders. When jobs that pay well have high rates of turnover, this is a sign of potential problems with other aspects of job quality.
Wages and BeyondCLASP's working definition of job quality includes the following elements (see Figure):
Wages and earnings. Money is the basic reason that most people go to work. A job that does not pay enough to allow a worker to purchase the necessities of life cannot be a good job. At least one-fourth of U.S. jobs pay less than poverty-level wages, the amount that would allow a full-time year-round worker to lift a family of four out of poverty ($20,444 in 2006, or $9.38 an hour).
Benefits. In the U.S., employment has historically been the main mechanism for pooling risk to provide health insurance and provide for security in old age. Only 42 percent of low-wage and low-income workers have personal health insurance coverage paid in part or full by their employer, compared to 94 percent of high-wage and high-income workers.
Job security. One important aspect of job quality is the likelihood of continued employment at the expected number of hours. A 1988 survey found that 73 percent of workers "believed they could count on job security if they did a good job." But 10 years later, only 56 percent of Americans still believed this was true.
Advancement opportunities. A low-wage job might not be a matter for concern if it is a stepping stone on a path to more skills and higher wages. For the workers who are starting from the lowest levels of earnings, even significant increases in earnings (on a percentage basis) are often not enough to allow them and their families to escape low-income status.
Work schedule. The hours one works have a great impact on one's well-being. This is especially true for workers who are juggling work and other responsibilities, including caring for children or elders. Only 39 percent of low-wage, low-income workers receive any paid time off that they can use for a personal illness, compared to 90 percent of high-wage and high-income workers. Many of those who do have paid time off are permitted to use it only for their own illness, not to care for a sick family member.
Health and safety. Workplace conditions can take a toll on workers' health, in the form of both acute injuries and chronic health conditions. Health and safety is one of the few aspects of job quality that has generally improved in recent decades. Workplace injuries are down by more than half since 1973, and workplace fatalities have also declined. But while people often think that workplace safety is a battle that has been won and can be forgotten, unfortunately this is not true. In recent years, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has increasingly relied on "voluntary agreements" with employers, rather than enforcing existing rules or issuing new ones.
Fairness and worker voice. All workers deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, free of discrimination and harassment. "Worker voice" refers to the ability of workers, either as individuals or collectively, to influence their daily activities at work as well as their overall working conditions. Worker voice is one of the hardest parts of job quality to define. But it is fundamental to workers' satisfaction with their jobs, and it may be fundamental to their health as well.
The job quality framework can be incorporated into public policy in two distinct ways: as a statement of societal values and as a guide to specific policies. Efforts are needed simultaneously on both fronts.
Talking about job quality helps focus attention on the choices that employers make that shape the nature of work, and on how our public policies and programs affect these choices. At the same time, the values discussion needs to draw on specific policies and programs to show that improving job quality is possible as well as desirable.
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by April Szuch.
