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The Washington Post on Sunday launched a serial publication of reports examining the "lives of low-wage workers" based on a survey by the Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. "Many struggle to pay off for life's basics -- housing, food and health care -- and well-nigh report having virtually no financial shock should they stumble," the Post reports.
For the telephony survey, 1,350 at random selected low-wage workers were polled betwixt June 18 and July 7. Low-wage workers were defined as adults ages 18 to 64 working at least 30 hours per week, not freelance and earning $27,000 or less in 2007. According to the Post, nearly twenty-five percent of all U.S. adults meet the survey's conditions.
The survey plant that most low-wage workers have difficulties affording health care and housing. According to the survey, trey in 10 low-wage workers are employed by companies that do not offer health policy, and about four in 10 low-wage workers ar employed by companies that do non offer sick days. More than half of low-wage workers aforementioned they take postponed necessary medical or dental care to trim back expenses, the survey launch. About half of low-wage workers aforementioned they took the Earned Income Tax Credit utmost year, and about half of those with children said they received health care for their children through Medicaid or SCHIP (Fletcher/Cohen, Washington Post, 8/3).
While many express no ruling about whether presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) or presumptive Republican campaigner Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) would do more to improve the economy or health care, "Obama has the pass edge among those wHO picked a favorite on these center issues," the Post reports. Overall, Obama holds a 2 to 1 bound over McCain in the poll among low-wage workers.
Seven in 10 low-wage workers said the federal government should focus on serving them get more affordable health maintenance coverage, a "core component of Obama's campaign," according to the Post (Shear/Cohen, Washington Post, 8/4).
The survey is available online.
Reprinted with kind permission from hypertext transfer protocol://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email saving at hypertext transfer protocol://www.kaisernetwork.
