INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A decline in good-paying manufacturing jobs in Indiana and growth of lower-wage service jobs has led to a 29 percent increase in people living in poverty in the state since the year before the Great Recession and a widening in the income gap between whites and some minorities, a report shows.
“The recovery is uneven in who it affects,” said Derek Thomas, senior analyst at the Indiana Institute for Working Families and author of the agency’s 2015 report on the economic status of Indiana families.
So far, Indiana has recovered 268,300 private-sector jobs since 2009, the state’s employment low point. Steven Braun, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, told The Indianapolis Star (https://indy.st/1IECZuo ) about a third of those jobs were in manufacturing with median wages hovering near $52,000 per year. But manufacturing, a traditional staple of Indiana’s economy, still is 28,700 jobs short of pre-recession levels.
At the same time, service employment has increased, expanding about 5 percent between 2007 and 2013, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most such jobs pay less than $13 per hour, according to the Indiana Institute for Working Families report.
So that means that Indiana’s poverty rate is increasing as more state residents have jobs. Median incomes in Indiana have fallen 12 percent since 2007, U.S. Census figures show. And low-income workers were hit hardest. A Brookings Institution analysis found an earnings decline of more than 25 percent in lower-income Indianapolis households.
Hispanics and blacks have been particularly hard hit. While those groups make up less than 16 percent of the population, they account for about half of the state’s service workers.
The gap between the median incomes of black and white households grew from $20,152 a year to $21,176 a year from 2009 to 2013. The divide between Hispanics and whites widened even more from $11,054 to $15,691.
Braun said Indiana needs to do some work to get residents prepared for the changed economy that includes a projected 1 million jobs within the next decade.
“Currently there are nearly 500,000 Hoosiers who do not have a diploma or high school equivalency, and only about one-quarter have a bachelor’s degree or higher,” Braun said. “The fact is, Indiana has a long way to go, but we are starting to build real momentum.”
Programs that focus on career readiness in high schools, technical and vocational training, and on-the-job training for employees are among Indiana’s tactics to construct a relevant workforce.
Braun said the state has doubled funding for the Jobs for America’s Graduates program, which focuses on the most at-risk youths to guide them through high school graduation and into post-secondary education or high-demand careers. Also, the Department of Workforce Development provides more than $750,000 each year to the Indiana Plan, a building trades education program with emphasis on placing members of minority groups in those jobs.
“We are growing jobs,” Braun said. “But all Hoosiers need to understand that they must take personal responsibility of their educational future.”
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Information from: The Indianapolis Star, https://www.indystar.com
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