•Press Release Health and Social Programs Workers
September 6, 2017
Contact: Dan Beeton, 202-239-1460
Washington, D.C. — The healthcare sector is one of the most important sources of jobs in the economy. Healthcare spending reached $3.2 trillion in 2015, or 17.8 percent of GDP, and accounted for 12.8 percent of private sector jobs. It was also the only industry that consistently added jobs during the Great Recession, and grew 20 percent between 2005 and 2015. Despite this growth, wages have either declined or been stagnant over the past decade for healthcare workers in hospitals and outpatient centers.
A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation with additional funding provided by the Nathan Cummings Foundation, describes the changing patterns of jobs and wages for healthcare workers, specifically in hospitals and outpatient clinics over the decade from 2005 to 2015. The healthcare sector has become more demographically diverse over the decade, but as jobs shift from hospitals to outpatient centers, wages are declining or stagnating, and inequality is increasing. (See healthcareworkers.us for more info and related blog posts.)
The report, “Organizational Restructuring in U.S. Healthcare Systems: Implications for Jobs, Wages, and Inequality,” provides a detailed breakdown of which groups of workers are experiencing stagnant or declining wages. For instance, the report finds that employment in outpatient centers has grown six times the rate of hospitals, but the only demographic group in these facilities to see wage gains is white men ? and these are modest. Some other highlights include:
Eileen Appelbaum, co-author of the report and Senior Economist at CEPR, stated: “Declining real wages in outpatient services cannot be explained by factors that often influence wage determination: educational level, age, or the share of workers who are part-time or foreign-born. Educational attainment rose for virtually every occupational group ? in some cases, substantially ? and is higher in outpatient care centers than in hospitals.”
Rosemary Batt, co-author and Cornell University professor, points to institutional explanations such as changes in union density. “While union density increased among professional employees between 2005 and 2015, union density has fallen among non-professional employees, particularly in outpatient settings. This may have contributed to the decline in median real wages for these workers.”
For more on the report’s findings, including blog posts and related materials, see healthcareworkers.us.
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