ABSTRACT
Jared Bernstein (this volume) has pulled together a rich array of statistical information, much of it from his own work at the Economic Policy Institute, to address some basic issues regarding the past, present, and future of low-wage work in the United States. His analysis provides signs of both hope and despair. On the hopeful side, the economic boom and tight labor markets of the later 1990s were good for the wages of those with so-called “bad jobs.” Working poverty among women declined steadily over recent decades, narrowing the gender gap in this regard. The black disadvantage in the prevalence of working poverty relative to whites also diminished during the Clinton expansion. Even more promising perhaps is the suggestion that the very low unemployment rates of this period were non-inflationary, giving rise to the hope that federal policy might recognize and institutionalize a lower full-employment unemployment rate.
