Thanks to the researchers at the
Economic Policy Institute, we find that Father's Day has become increasingly
less happy for a substantial fraction of American men as the decades have passed. Their
research shows that men between the ages of 25 and 34 and between 35 and 44
have seen the likelihood that they will earn poverty-level wages increase dramatically
since 1979.
Here is a bar graph showing the
percentage of American men earning poverty level wages in both 1979 and 2013:
The percentage of men between ages
25 and 34 that are working for poverty level wages has more than doubled from
10.8 percent in 1979 to 26.1 percent in 2013. Think about it, just over
one-quarter of men between the ages of 25 and 34 are working for poverty level
wages! The situation for slightly older men between the ages of 35 and 44
is somewhat better, however, the percentage of men that are working for poverty
level wages has also more than doubled from 7.6 percent in 1979 to 15.4 percent
in 2013, still, a significant percentage of all workers. Keeping in mind
that traditionally, men have earned more than half of a family's income and
that most couples have children before they are in their forties, the situation
is rather frightening. With 1 in 6.6 men in their early forties earning
poverty level wages in America today, the situation for their children is not
particularly a good one. The cycle of poverty will be very difficult to
break, particularly given the high cost of post-secondary education.
Just in case you thought that earnings by women were going to bail out American families, here is a graph showing the percentage of women working for poverty level wages in both 1979 and 2013:
Just in case you were wondering, the
poverty level wage in 2013 was $11.49 an hour.
Happy Father's Day!
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