Print-Friendly Version    

The US unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent in March 2002, and the average hourly earnings of the 131 million employed workers were $14.67. California's unemployment rate rose to 6.4 percent. However, motion picture employment rose by 9,000; there were 723 filming days for feature films in Los Angeles County in March 2002.

About 45 percent of US workers are covered by private pension plans, plans that provide benefits in addition to Social Security. However, the nature of private pension plans has changed- more workers in 2002 are covered by defined contribution than defined benefit plans. Under defined contribution plans, worker pension benefits reflect how much the employer and worker contributions grew; under defined benefit plans, worker benefits reflect, for instance, years of service and salary. US private pension assets in 1998 were $4 trillion, half in defined contribution and half in defined benefit plans.

The High Court of Samoa in April 2002 ordered a Korean-owned sportswear factory to pay an average of $13,000 to the 270 Vietnamese workers. The minimum wage in American Samoa is $2.60 an hour, but many of the workers were paid only $2.25 an hour, and the company unlawfully deducted charges for room and board. The court also found that Daewoosa and several recruiting companies had illegally charged the migrants $3,000 to $7,700 to obtain their jobs.

The US charges low duty and has had no quotas on most apparel from Africa since the African Growth and Opportunity Act of 2000, and Madagascar became an apparel center, sewing clothes for the US market. However, disputed December 16, 2001 elections resulted in a blockade around Antananarivo, the capital, where most of the sewing factories are located. As a result, workers were laid off because factories could not get cloth to sew. Madagascar, with 16 million people, including 70 percent who have below poverty-level incomes; sewing jobs that paid more than the minimum wage of $25 a month were prized.

In the third decision to limit the reach of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, the US Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision in April 2002 ruled that disabled employees who say they need a less-demanding job generally do not have a right to bump workers with more seniority. The ADA says workers with a physical or mental impairment have a right to work so long as they can do so with a "reasonable accommodation" by their employers. This ADA decision, following the 2002 decision not to award back pay to unauthorized foreigners wrongly fired, is seen as reinforcing employer power.

Employers argued that they should not have to bump more senior workers in favor of a disabled employee, and the Supreme Court largely agreed, saying "the seniority system will prevail in the run of cases. Ordinarily, the ADA does not require . . . an employer to assign a disabled employee to a particular position even though another employee is entitled to that position under the employer's established seniority system."

H-1B. The H-1B program was enacted in the Immigration Act of 1990, which revised an earlier, similar, program under which US employers could ask the US government to have skilled foreigners admitted to fill vacant jobs. The H-1B program at first allowed up to 65,000 foreign professionals a year to enter the US for up to six years after a US employer requested their admission- there was little bureaucracy. Employer requests increased and soon exceeded the annual ceiling, and the number of visas was raised, to the current 195,000 a year. Since each can stay for up to six years, there are an estimated 600,000 H-1Bs in the US in 2002.

For the fiscal year ended September 30, 2001, the Immigration and Naturalization Service received a record 342,035 H-1B applications from employers. It approved 163,200, more than half for jobs in computers and engineering. Almost half of the H-1B visa holders were born in India, their average age is 28, 72 percent are males, and their median salary in 2000 was $45,000; one generalization is that "H-1B workers are often younger and better educated than their American peers and are seeking permanent resident status."

Many US employers of H-1Bs are themselves immigrants or naturalized US citizens who hire workers from their countries of origin. For example, one said that he hires fellow Russians because they "don't worry about working normal hours [and] it's just more efficient if we all speak Russian."

Welfare. The 1996 welfare law must be reauthorized before the end of 2002. President Bush has proposed a renewal that increases work requirements. Under the Bush plan, expected to be approved in May 2002, states must by 2007 have 70 percent of welfare recipients engaged in a 40-hour week, including 24 hours on a job, and 16 hours of education or other activities- requiring 40 hours a week of activities would increase child care costs. In 2002, 30 percent of welfare recipients are working in a typical state, and a typical week for those recipients is 20 hours of work and 10 hours of training.

Advocates of a work-first approach say that holding a job "helps change the self-perception of the individual to someone with a work identity."

As of April 2002, some 114,000 adult welfare recipients, half in Los Angeles County, are slated to lose cash benefits in January 2003 when they reach the five-year lifetime limit on federal assistance-- Los Angeles County has a larger welfare caseload than 48 of the 50 states. About 35 percent of the adults expected to hit their five-year time limit in 2003 are immigrants who do not speak English as their primary language. The average single-parent family on welfare is expected to lose about $130 of the typical $635 a month for a mother with two children; cash benefits for children continue in California.

Some states, such as Illinois and Washington, use state funds to continue to provide cash benefits. California was slower to get its program going-- CalWORKS began in 1998-and already provides child-care services for two years after recipients lose cash assistance. There are bills pending in the California Legislature to soften the five-year time limit by, for instance, stopping the clock if the recipient is working and still receiving aid, and allowing going to school to count as work.

Food Stamps. President Bush proposed to restore Food Stamps to 363,000 legal immigrants at a cost of $2.1 billion over 10 years; the new Farm Bill would increase spending for agriculture and nutrition programs by $73.5 billion over the decade. To qualify for Food Stamps, immigrants would have to prove they had worked in the US for at least five years. They could not receive food stamps for more than two years, while US citizens can receive them as long as they are eligible. The House and Senate in April 2002 agreed to the restoration in a new farm bill (HR 2646).

Social Security. In 1950, there were three million recipients of Social Security benefits and 48 million tax-paying workers. By 1975, there were 27 million recipients and 100 million tax-paying workers, and in 2000, there were 45 million recipients and 153 million tax-paying workers. By 2025, there are projected to be 76 million recipients and 173 million tax-paying workers tax-paying workers, meaning that the increase in the number of recipients, up 31 million, exceeds the increased number of tax-paying workers, up 20 million.


Steven Greenhouse, "Apparel maker in Samoa is told to pay workers $3.5 million," New York Times, April 20, 2002. Miguel Bustillo, "Time Is Running Out for Thousands on Welfare," Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2002. Evelyn Iritani, "High-Paid Jobs Latest U.S. Export," Los Angeles Times, April 2, 2002.