By  Associated Press and Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 09:28 EST, 16  September 2013 |  UPDATED: 09:32 EST, 16 September 2013

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 new  analysis.

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

But Monday’s Associated Press report shows  U.S. households with an income of more than $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.

‘This was no ‘equal opportunity’ recession or  an ‘equal opportunity’ recovery,’ said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for  Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.

‘One part of America is in depression, while  another part is in full employment,’ Sum added.

The findings follow the government’s tepid  jobs report this month that showed a steep decline in the share of Americans  working or looking for work.

On Sunday, President Barack Obama stressed  the need to address widening inequality, warning that proposed budget cuts will  worsen the gap.

 

 

‘The folks in the middle and at the bottom  haven’t seen wage or income growth,’ Obama said on ABC’s This Week.

While the link between income and joblessness  may seem apparent, the data are the first to establish how this factor has  contributed to the erosion of the middle class, a traditional strength of the  U.S. economy.

Based on employment-to-population ratios,  which are seen as a reliable gauge of the labor market, the employment disparity  between rich and poor households remains at the highest levels in more than a  decade, the period for which comparable data are available.

‘It’s pretty frustrating,’ says Annette  Guerra, 33, of San Antonio, who has been looking for a full-time job since she  finished nursing school more than a year ago.

During her search, she found that employers  had become increasingly picky about an applicant’s qualifications in the tight  job market, often turning her away because she lacked previous nursing  experience or because she wasn’t certified in more areas.

Guerra says she now gets by doing ‘odds and  ends’ jobs such as a pastry chef, bringing in $500 to $1,000 a month, but she  says daily living can be challenging as she cares for her mother, who has  end-stage kidney disease.

‘For those trying to get ahead, there should  be some help from government or companies to boost the economy and provide  people with the necessary job training,’ says Guerra, who hasn’t ruled out  returning to college to get a business degree once her financial situation is  more stable.

‘I’m optimistic that things will start to  look up, but it’s hard,’ she continued.

Last year the average length of unemployment  for U.S. workers reached 39.5 weeks, the highest level since World War II.

The duration of unemployment has since edged  lower to 36.5 weeks based on data from January to July, still relatively high  historically.

 

Economists call this a ‘bumping down’ or  ‘crowding out’ in the labor market, a domino effect that pushes out lower-income  workers, pushes median income downward and contributes to income inequality.

Because many mid-skill jobs are being lost to  globalization and automation, recent U.S. growth in low-wage jobs has not come  fast enough to absorb displaced workers at the bottom.

Low-wage workers are now older and better  educated than ever, with especially large jumps in those with at least some  college-level training.

‘The people at the bottom are going to be  continually squeezed, and I don’t see this ending anytime soon,’ said Harvard  economist Richard Freeman.

‘If the economy were growing enough or unions  were stronger, it would be possible for the less educated to do better and for  the lower income to improve.

‘But in our current world, where we are still  adjusting to globalization, that is not very likely to happen.’

The figures are based on an analysis of the  Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey by Sum and Northeastern University  economist Ishwar Khatiwada.

They are supplemented with material from the  Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s David Autor, an economics professor  known for his research on the disappearance of mid-skill positions.

John Schmitt, a senior economist at the  Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington think tank, also  contributed to the paper.

Mark Rank, a professor at Washington  University in St. Louis, analyzed data on poverty.

 

The overall rise in both the unemployment  rate and low-wage jobs due to the recent recession accounts for the record  number of people who were stuck in poverty in 2011: 46.2 million, or 15 percent  of the population.

When the Census Bureau releases new 2012  poverty figures on Tuesday, most experts believe the numbers will show only  slight improvement, if any, due to the slow pace of the recovery.

Overall, more than 16 percent of adults ages  16 and older are now ‘underutilized’ in the labor market.

That means they are unemployed,  ‘underemployed’ in part-time jobs when full-time work is desired or among the  ‘hidden unemployed’ who are not actively job hunting but express a desire for  immediate work.

Among households making less than $20,000 a  year, the share of underutilized workers jumps to about 40 percent.

For those in the $20,000-to-$39,999 category,  it’s just over 21 percent and about 15 percent for those earning $40,000 to  $59,999.

At the top of the scale, underutilization  affects just 7.2 percent of those in households earning more than  $150,000.

By race and ethnicity, black workers in  households earning less than $20,000 were the most likely to be underutilized,  at 48.4 percent.

Low-income Hispanics and whites were almost  equally as likely to be underutilized, at 38 percent and 36.8 percent,  respectively, compared to 31.8 percent for low-income  Asian-Americans.

Loss of jobs in the recent recession has hit  younger, less-educated workers especially hard.

 

Fewer teenagers are taking on low-wage jobs  as older adults pushed out of disappearing mid-skill jobs, such as bank teller  or administrative assistant, move down the ladder.

Eric Reichert, 45, of West Milford, N.J., who  holds a master’s degree in library science, is among the longer-term job  seekers.

He had hoped to find work as a legal  librarian or in a similar research position after he was laid off from a title  insurance company in 2008.

Reichert now works in a lower-wage  administrative records position, also helping to care for his 8-year-old son  while his wife works full-time at a pharmaceutical company.

‘I’m still looking, and I wish I could say  that I will find a better job, but I can no longer say that with confidence,’ he  said.

‘At this point, I’m reconsidering what I’m  going do, but it’s not like I’m 24 years old anymore,’ Reichert  added.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2421829/Employment-gap-Americas-rich-poor-widest-level-record–lowest-earners-jobless-rate-Great-Depression.html#ixzz2f7Ns7qKy Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook