It’s bad enough that one in 10 in metro Atlanta can’t find work.
Yet even for those lucky enough to have a job, the region’s wages continue to lag behind salaries across the country.
The PayScale Index, an online survey of salary data released today, shows that, overall, wages for private-sector workers in Atlanta declined 0.8 percent in 2010. Only the metropolitan areas of San Diego, Miami and San Francisco notched lower wage rates.
A bit of good news: Atlanta notched a 0.4 percent increase during the first quarter of 2011.
Add in rising gas and food prices and Atlantans — employed and unemployed — worry about making ends meet this summer.
“I’m having to scrape for every penny I get,” said Kennesaw’s William Fowler, 60 and jobless. “I do some volunteer work and, with gas so high, I wasn’t able to do some volunteer work at a Marietta food pantry [Monday] morning.”
Fowler, a construction manager, quit Birmingham 2½ years ago for supposedly better job prospects in Atlanta. A series of low-wage jobs — maintenance at an assisted-living center, church custodian, assembly line worker — paid $10, maybe $12 an hour.
Similar jobs, with similar pay, abound across metro Atlanta. This month’s job fair listings on the Georgia Department of Labor’s website lean heavily toward low-wage work: customer service rep, mall security, debt collector, nonemergency driver and groundskeeper.
With 10.2 percent unemployment, and enough jobless applicants, employers have little compunction to raise salaries. Meanwhile, life gets pricier.
Consumer prices overall have risen at a 5.7 percent annual clip the past three months, fueled largely by skyrocketing gas prices. In Atlanta, the average price for a gallon of regular gas hit $3.63, 11 cents higher than a week before, according to AAA. By summer, $4-a-gallon gas seems likely.
“I’ll just have to keep doing what I can to get by,” Fowler said. “But I really have to count my blessings. My children are grown. I don’t have a mortgage or car payment. I don’t have the responsibility for anybody but me — Bill. And it’s all about survival.”
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