DHAKA: The gap in employment rates between America’s highest- and lowest-income families has stretched to its widest levels since officials began tracking the data a decade ago, according to an analysis of government data conducted for media.

Rates of unemployment for the lowest-income families - those earning less than US$20,000 - have topped 21 percent, nearly matching the rate for all workers during the 1930s’ Great Depression.

US households with income of more than US$150,000 a year have an unemployment rate of 3.2 percent, a level traditionally defined as full employment.

At the same time, middle-income workers are increasingly pushed into lower-wage jobs. Many of them in turn are displacing lower-skilled, low-income workers, who become unemployed or are forced to work fewer hours, the analysis shows, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1721 HRS, SEPT 17, 2013
RoR/RIS