Impact of low-wage work on the economy

In the wake of strikes by Walmart workers last week and fast food workers in New York City this past Thursday, the issue of low-wage work is slowly becoming more prominent. This is a timely, important and essential conversation.

Retail's Hidden Potential, a recent Demos' report about the possibility of lifting 1.5 million retail workers and their families out of poverty, provides hard evidence about the impact of low-wage work on the economy. Now a new study by researchers at Boston College and the University of Massachusetts shows the impact of parents' low-wage jobs on their children.

Analyzing over 100 different data sources, the new study, How Youth Are Put At Risk by Parents' Low-Wage Jobs, estimates that nearly 16 million U.S. families are headed by parents working low-wage jobs and that 1 in 6 adolescents alone live in such households. Read more >>