A large percentage of the jobs in western New York do not pay enough to keep a family safely out of poverty. Roughly 125,000 workers are in occupations for which the median wage is less than $20,000 per year – including salespeople, cashiers, security guards, and child care workers. Another 40,000 workers are in jobs where the median wage falls between $20,000 and $23,000 – including janitors, home health aides, pre-school teachers, and teachers assistants

Magavern, Sam

English

A large percentage of the jobs in western New York do not pay enough to keep a family safely out of poverty. Roughly 125,000 workers are in occupations for which the median wage is less than $20,000 per year – including salespeople, cashiers, security guards, and child care workers. Another 40,000 workers are in jobs where the median wage falls between $20,000 and $23,000 – including janitors, home health aides, pre-school teachers, and teachers assistants.povertylowwageworkincomeinequality__poverty_level_work_in_western_new_yorkSTEVE.pdf: 37 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

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Poverty Level Work in Western New York

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11-16-2008 
Poverty Level Work in Western New York 
Sam Magavern 
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Poverty Level Work in Western New York 
Abstract 
A large percentage of the jobs in western New York do not pay enough to keep a family safely out of 
poverty. Roughly 125,000 workers are in occupations for which the median wage is less than $20,000 per 
year – including salespeople, cashiers, security guards, and child care workers. Another 40,000 workers 
are in jobs where the median wage falls between $20,000 and $23,000 – including janitors, home health 
aides, pre-school teachers, and teachers assistants. 
Keywords 
Buffalo, Poverty/Low Wage Work/Income Inequality, Low Wage Work, Report, PPG, PDF 
This article is available at DigitalCommons@ILR: https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/buffalocommons/308 
  
 
 
 
 
Poverty Level Work in Western New York 
 
Sam Magavern 
November 16, 2008 
 
 
A large percentage of the jobs in western 
New York do not pay enough to keep a 
family safely out of poverty.  Roughly 
125,000 workers are in occupations for 
which the median wage is less than 
$20,000 per year – including salespeople, 
cashiers, security guards, and child care 
workers.  Another 40,000 workers are in 
jobs where the median wage falls 
between $20,000 and $23,000 – 
including janitors, home health aides, 
pre-school teachers, and teachers 
assistants.  
    
Work that does not pay enough is the 
most widespread cause of poverty.  
According to the National Center for 
Children in Poverty, in New York state, 
74% of children living in low-income 
families have at least one employed 
parent.i   
 
How much is enough to be out of 
poverty?  In 2008, the federal poverty 
guideline for a family of four is $21,200.ii  
Most experts agree that this guideline is 
set artificially low, and that a family of 
four needs an income substantially higher 
than $21,200 to escape poverty.iii  For 
many anti-poverty programs, income 
eligibility is set at 150% or 175% of the 
federal guideline; for example, the 
eligibility threshold for the 2008 Home 
Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) is  
 
 
 
175% of the guideline, or $37,100 for a 
family of four. 
 
The City of New York recently 
researched and defined its own poverty 
guidelines.iv  New York’s guidelines,  
based on a system developed by the 
National Academy of Sciences (NAS), 
measure whether a household’s income is 
less than 80% of the median expenses for 
basic needs such as food, shelter, 
clothing, child care, transportation, and 
out-of-pocket medical expenses.  For 
2006, the official federal line for a family 
of four was $20,444.  The NAS measure 
for the U.S. as a whole was $21,818; 
adjusting it for New York City’s cost of 
living, New York developed a figure of 
$26,138 for 2006. 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
The City of Buffalo’s Living Wage 
Ordinance, which is designed to keep a 
family of three – rather than four – out of 
poverty, sets the living wage for 2008 at 
$9.90 per hour for a worker with health 
benefits, yielding an annual wage of 
$20,592.  The rate is $11.11 per hour for 
a worker with no health benefits, 
resulting in an annual wage of $23,109.v 
 
The Self-Sufficiency Standard, a national 
tool customized for individual regions, 
measures how much income a family 
needs to meet basic living costs without 
any public or private assistance or 
subsidies.  In 2005, a single parent with 
an infant needed to make $11.58 per 
hour, or $24,086 per year, to be self-
sufficient in Erie County.vi  Penn State 
University’s Living Wage Calculator, by 
contrast, calculates that a single parent 
with one child must earn $29,340 per 
year to escape poverty.vii 
 
The National Center for Children in 
Poverty has developed a Basic Needs 
Calculator measuring how much a family 
needs to pay for basic needs such as 
adequate food, stable housing, and health 
care.  According to it, in 2008 a single 
parent in Buffalo with one child, age one, 
needs to make $38,320 per year, or $18 
per hour, to meet basic needs.  A single 
parent with two children, ages 3 and 6, 
needs to make $45,109, or $22 per 
hour.viii 
 
In 2006, the Buffalo-Niagara Falls 
metropolitan area had 915,243 people age 
16 years or over.  Of these, 562,713 
(61%) were in the labor force, and 
352,530 (39%) were not.  Of those in the 
labor force, 528,613 were employed and 
34,100 were unemployed, for an 
unemployment rate of 6.1%.   
 
The poverty rate (based on the standard 
federal measure) for all people in the area 
was 14.2%; for those under 18 years, it 
was 21%.  The median household income 
was $42,831, with 43,571 households 
with income less than $10,000, 32,353 
with income between $10,000 and 
$14,999, and 56,071 with between 
$15,000 and $24,999, for a total of 
131,995 households with income below 
$25,000.ix 
 
In the city of Buffalo in 2006, there were 
203,602 people age 16 or over, of whom 
116,031 (60%) were in the labor force 
and 87,571 (40%) were not.  Of those in 
the labor force, 105,681 were employed 
and 10,350 were unemployed, for an 
unemployment rate of 8.9%.   
 
The poverty rate for all people in the city 
was 29.9%; for those under 18 it was 
42.9%.  The median household income 
was $27,850, with 22,914 households 
earning less than $10,000, 11,453 earning 
between $10,000 and $14,999, and 
15,990 with income between $15,000 and 
$24,999, for a total of 50,357 households 
with income less than $25,000. 
 
The table below lists the 2007 median 
wages for some common western New 
York jobs paying less than $26,000 per 
year.x  These workers account for 
216,720, or 34.1%, of the 634,700 
workers identified by the Department of 
Labor.  The figures below include only 
jobs with over 1,000 workers. There are 
many other low-wage workers in less 
common jobs, such as the 370 pharmacy 
aides with a median wage of $19,210, the 
420 people doing tire repair for a median 
wage of $19,010, and the 700 
EMT/Paramedics with a median wage of 
$24,620.   
  
 
 
 
Any discussion of poverty must center on 
this huge cadre of workers.  The two 
most common responses to poverty, 
economic development and education, 
can do relatively little to reduce poverty 
among low-wage workers.  Economic 
development as currently practiced 
means giving tax subsidies to large 
businesses in return for the promise to 
create or retain jobs.  It does nothing to 
raise workers’ incomes, and it increases 
their taxes by shifting the tax burden 
from large corporations to working 
people.  Rather than reducing economic 
inequality – New York has the worst  
 
 
 
inequality of any state in the union – it 
exacerbates it.xi 
 
Better education is desirable for many 
reasons, but it should not be offered as a 
cure-all for poverty.  Most jobs do not 
require a college education: about two-
thirds of the jobs in New York state 
require a high school diploma or less.xii  
We will always need large numbers of 
food service workers, salespeople, 
cashiers, janitors, landscapers, security 
guards, home health aides, preschool 
teachers, and child care workers.  If we 
do not pay these workers a living wage, 
they will live in poverty, regardless of 
their educational level.  
                           
  
Common Low Wage Jobs in Western New York (2007) 
 
Occupation Number Employed Median Income 
  
 
Below $20,000 
  
Food Preparation / Serving 55,920  $17,300 
Retail Salespersons 20,170 $19,060 
Cashiers 18,780 $16,360 
Stock Clerks and Order Fillers 9,220 $19,220 
Security Guards 4,620 $19,760 
Child Care Workers 4,320 $17,200 
Maids/Housekeeping 4,040 $18,920 
Recreation Workers 2,070 $19,560 
Personal and Home Care Aides 1,620 $19,380 
Cleaners: Vehicles, Equipment 1,420 $17,000 
Laundry/Dry-Cleaning 1,250 $17,840 
Parking Lot Attendants 1,200 $16,740 
              Subtotal 124,630 
 
   
Below $23,000  
  
Janitors/Cleaners 12,080 $22,090 
Teachers Assistants 8,800 $21,790 
Home Health Aides 7,400 $21,670 
Landscaping/Groundskeeping 3,440 $22,690 
Helpers – Production Workers 3,140 $21,910 
Preschool Teachers 1,880 $21,180 
Counter/Rental Clerks 1,590 $22,340 
Driver/Sales Workers 1,030 $21,380 
                Subtotal 39,360 
 
   
Below $26,000 
  
Office Clerks 11,890 $23,390 
Nursing Aides, Orderlies 8,510 $25,220 
Team Assemblers 5,490 $25,900 
Receptionists/Information Clerks 5,420 $23,880 
Shipping Clerks 3,360 $25,560 
Tellers 2,550 $24,140 
Social Service Assistants  2,120 $23,270 
Hairdressers, Cosmetologists 1,970 $23,510 
Packaging Machine Operators 1,940 $25,930 
Electronics Assemblers 1,590 $25,090 
Rehabilitation Counselors 1,580 $23,660 
Telemarketers 1,570 $23,450 
Pharmacy Technicians 1,320 $24,780 
Data Entry 1,260 $24,330 
File Clerks 1,090 $23,240 
Sewing Machine Operators 1,070 $24,450 
              Subtotal 52,730 
 
   
Total 216,720 
 
  
 
 
 
                                                 
i
 Michelle Chau et al, “On the Edge in the Empire State,” National Center for Children in Poverty (May 2006).  
“Low-income,” in this definition, means lacking enough income to meet basic needs such as adequate food, stable 
housing, and health care.  NCCP’s definition of low-income is roughly 200% of the federal poverty line. 
ii
 http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/08Poverty.shtml/  In 2007, it was $20,650. 
iii
 For a brief overview, see Jessie Willis, “How We Measure Poverty,” at http://www.ocpp.org/poverty/how.htm. 
iv
 New York Center for Economic Opportunity, “The CEO Poverty Measure,” (August, 2008); see also Neil 
DeMause, “City’s Poor Look Different Through a New Assessment,” City Limits Weekly, 7/21/08. 
v
 The Buffalo Living Wage Ordinance applies to a small number of employers with city contracts.  For more 
information, see www.city-buffalo.com/Home/CityServices/Living_Wage_Commission.  New York state’s 
minimum wage, which is not tied to a poverty line or indexed to inflation, is $7.15 per hour, which yields an 
annual income of $14,872. 
vi
 Regional Institute, “State of the Region Project: 1.5, Cost of Living,” (February 2005) 
vii
 http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/results.php?location=23687 
viii
 http://nccp.org/tools/frs/budget.php. 
ix
 The poverty rates are much higher for people of color.  According to 2000 census data, the metro poverty rates 
were 7.6% for whites, 33.5% for African-Americans, and 36.3% for Hispanics. As of 2004, the percentages of 
households without access to a car were 8.9% for whites, 33.7% for African-Americans, and 35.6% for Hispanics.  
Buffalo is the eight most segregated metro area in the nation.  See www.diversitydata.org.    
x
 Department of Labor, http://www.labor.state.ny.us/workforceindustrydata/wages_pr.asp?reg=wny.  Wage data 
are from the 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 OES survey, and have been adjusted to second quarter 2007 by making 
cost-of-living adjustments. 
xiFor inequality data, see Fiscal Policy Institute, “Pulling Apart in New York” (April 2008). 
xii
 Fiscal Policy Institute, The State of Working New York, 2007, p. 23. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
____________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Partnership for the Public Good    
www.ppgbuffalo.org    
237 Main St., Suite 1200, Buffalo NY 14203 
 


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