Making ends meet in Manchester

Manchester residents have a better chance of finding jobs that pay a livable wage than do residents of just about any other city or town in the state. But that’s not saying much.

According to a follow-up to the New Hampshire Basic Needs and Livable Wage 2006 study released in October, 2008, by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, a Queen City family with two kids requires both mom and dad to each have full-time jobs paying at least $12.79 an hour in order to “be self-sufficient and pay for the necessities of life.” The necessities of life are defined as food, rent, utilities, basic phone service, clothing and household expenses, transportation by automobile, child care, healthcare and a small allowance for personal expenses.

The problem is that only 55 percent of city jobs pay a livable wage for this family situation.

And it doesn’t get any better for other family types. For a two-parent, two-child household in which only one parent works, only 29 percent of jobs in Manchester pay a livable wage — in this case $19.23 an hour. For a single person with two kids, he or she must make $21.58 an hour to make ends meet — a wage paid by only some 23 percent of city jobs.

Here are the numbers:

and:

So if you can’t make ends meet working in many of the city’s jobs, what do you do? Go without “necessities” like health insurance for one. Or work overtime, if you can get it. Maybe you move back in with your parents, or with another family member, who might also provide you with free babysitting.

And then there’s the safety net provided by the government (i.e. food stamps, Medicaid, etc.) and nonprofits (subsidized housing, fuel assistance, food, clothes, etc.), which while all too necessary, also give many employers an excuse to pay their employees less knowing that the taxpayer will make up the difference.

Unfortunately, the UNH study notes, things don’t appear to be improving on the livable wage front. In addition to the general economic downturn — and the data they used is from 2007, before things went from bad to worse — a “second major factor impacting the availability of living wage jobs is the changing composition of New Hampshire’s economic base.” Indeed, it notes that the state lost 25,400 manufacturing jobs — representing a full 25 percent industry decline — between 2000 and 2007. These generally better-paying production jobs were replaced, but with lower-paying service sector jobs in food service, retail, healthcare, education and the like.