Recession Hurt Some More Than Others

Jerrick Smith

Ed Sivak, director of the Mississippi Economic Policy Center, says many adults in Mississippi will need to go back to school to compete in the 21st-century economy.

by Elizabeth Waibel
February 1, 2012

During the recent recession, men and African Americans saw the steepest decline in median wages, a new report says, while women made gains, and wages for whites stayed about the same.

Wage disparities between whites and African Americans persist, the report reveals, in much the same way as they have for three decades. The median wage for African Americans in 2010 was $11.02, compared to $15.66 for whites. Since 2007, when the recession hit, wages for African Americans went down by 34 cents, while wages for whites increased by 26 cents.

The Mississippi Economic Policy Center released a report on the State of Working Mississippi in 2012 last week, showing how wages, education levels and other factors have changed in the state over the past decade.

"Wages over the last decade have largely remained stagnant when you adjust for inflation," Ed Sivak, director of MEPC, said.

Mississippians' educational attainment levels have increased somewhat, but are still lower than the rest of the country. The report underscores the need to target resources to strategies that connect people with education that will help them compete for high-paying, in-demand jobs in the 21st century, Sivak said.

"When adults get at least one year of post-secondary education with credentials, that has the highest boost in earnings," he said.

Many adults are going back to school to strengthen their chances of getting a good job in the tough economy, which means often means they will need help navigating the community college system, GED services and child-care services, Sivak said.

Part of the report examined wages in Mississippi from 2000 to 2010. The good news is that the gender wage gap—the amount that women make compared to their male counterparts—is shrinking and is smaller than the national average. In Mississippi, the report says, women's wages were at 89 percent of men's wages in 2010, while nationally women's wages were at 83 percent of men's.

Women's median wages are rising and catching up with men's wages, from a median hourly wage of less than $10 in 1990 to $10.96 in 2000 to $12.75 in 2010. However, part of the reason the wage gap is shrinking is that men's wages are dropping, because the recession disproportionately affected sectors that employ higher concentrations of men, such as construction, Sivak said. In 2000, the median wage for men was $15.41, but that number dropped to $14.29 in 2010.

Read the full report at http://mepconline.org.


Economics 101
From 2000 to 2010, wages rose by 2.4 percent, while community-college tuition increased by 56 percent and university tuition increased by 40 percent.

• As of last school year, a year of community college costs $2,114 and a year at a university costs $5,067.
• In 2010, the median wage for workers with a high-school diploma was $11.76. The median wage for workers with a bachelor's degree or higher was $20.61.


Who's Making Bank?
• Adjusted for inflation, the median hourly wage for workers in the state rose only marginally from 2000 to 2010, from $13.13 to $13.45.

• The gap between the median wage for men and women is shrinking. In 2000, the median wage for men was $15.41, while women made only $10.96. In 2010, men made $14.29 per hour, while women made $12.75. Wages for both men and women are higher than they were in 1990, when men made $12.64 per hour and women made $9.64.

• The gender gap in wages is smaller in Mississippi than in the nation overall. In the United States as a whole, women make 83 percent of what their male counterparts do, while in Mississippi, women's wages are at 89 percent of men's wages.

• The median wage for African Americans was only 70 percent of what whites made in 2010—$11.02 for African Americans compared to $15.66 for whites.

• Since the beginning of the recession in 2007, the median wages for African Americans have dropped by 34 cents, while wages for whites have increased by 26 cents.

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