WORKING POOR

The working poor are working people whose incomes fall below a given poverty line. Depending on how one defines "working" and "poverty," someone may or may not be counted as part of the working poor. For example, discussions in the United States about defining working poverty often fall on different sides based mainly on the two-party distinction. In nations with multiple parties, the discussions may be more refined, but a variety of opinions exist how the working poor compare to the nonworking poor.

While poverty is often associated with joblessness, a significant proportion of the poor in the US and Canada, but also Italy, Spain, and Ireland are actually employed. The wages the working poor receive are insufficient to provide basic necessities and lead to people making choices between having food on the table or having a table. Largely because they are earning such low wages, the working poor face numerous obstacles that make it difficult for many of them to find and keep a job, save up money, and maintain a sense of self-worth. 

Particularly having an official working poverty rate can make the definition more important than the people. The US, for instance, has remained a somewhat stable level of the working poverty rate over the past four decades, but many social scientists argue that the official rate is set too low; that the proportion of workers facing significant financial hardship has instead increased over the years. The same is true for other nations, where the hardship for the working poor is also not expressed well.

WASHINGTON,Jan 15 (Reuters) - The number of U.S. families struggling with poverty despite parents being employed continued to grow in 2011 as more people returned to work but mostly at lower-paying service jobs, an analysis released on Tuesday shows.

More working parents have taken jobs as cashiers, maids, waiters and other low-wage jobs in fast growing sectors that offer fewer hours and benefits, according to The Working Poor Project, a privately funded effort aimed at improving economic security for low-income families.

The result is 200,000 more such working families - the so-called "working poor" - emerged in 2011 than in 2010, according to the report, based on analysis of the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data.

About 10.4 million such families - or 47.5 million Americans - now live near poverty, defined as earning less than 200 percent of the official poverty rate, which is $22,811 for a family of four.

Overall, nearly one-third of working families now struggle, up from 31 percent in 2010 and 28 percent in 2007, when the recession began, according to the analysis.

"Although many people are returning to work, they are often taking jobs with lower wages and less job security, compared with the middle-class jobs they held before the economic downturn," the report said.

"This means that nearly a third of all working families ... may not have enough money to meet basic needs."

Social scientists from many nations argue that changes in the economy, especially the shift from a manufacturing-based to a service-based economy, have resulted in the polarization of the labor market. This means that there are more jobs at the top and the bottom of the income spectrum, but fewer jobs in the middle. 

And fewer jobs in the middle mean a reduction of the MIDDLE CLASS.  Of course, from a business perspective as companies protect margins, it would be inconceivable to think that this shift was intentional.  Although…