Study Reveals Virginia’s Workers are “Feeling the Pinch”
RICHMOND – Despite above-average economic growth in recent years, Virginia’s economy appears to be slowing and many of the Commonwealth’s workers are feeling the strain. According to a new study released today by The Commonwealth Institute, an uptick in the state’s unemployment rate and the number of its workers that are underemployed are just the latest evidence that not all Virginians are sharing in Virginia’s economic prosperity. While the poverty rate and the number of uninsured dropped nationally in 2007, Virginia saw a significant increase in the size of its population that lives below the federal poverty level and the number of its uninsured.
“Virginia’s workers are no better off now than they were at the start of the most recent economic expansion.” says Michael Cassidy, Executive Director of The Commonwealth Institute. “For many workers, wages have declined since the last recession, the out-of-pocket cost of health care has increased, and benefits like employer-sponsored health insurance and pensions have disappeared. When you add in the pressures created by the downturn in the housing market and spiking food and energy prices, you get a picture of workers who are being stretched pretty thin.”
The study, entitled “Feeling the Pinch: The State of Working Virginia” examines trends in employment, labor force demographics, wages and income, and employee benefits. Among its major findings are:
- Virginia still outperforms the nation in terms of the economic output generated per worker, yet median wages have failed to match gains in worker productivity.
- Virginia’s highest paid workers earned, on average, fourteen times what Virginia’s lowest paid workers earned per hour in 2007.
- The number of Virginians without health insurance topped one million for the second year in a row, and private pension coverage continued to decline. In 2007, only seven other states extended unemployment insurance benefits to fewer unemployed citizens than Virginia.
- Virginians who receive health insurance through their employer face the highest average premium contributions in the nation for single coverage.