Athens County truly is the “working poor” capital of Ohio. The latest available U.S. Census figures show that Athens has the highest percentage in the state of employed civilians working in service occupations and the lowest percentage of those employed in manufacturing. With service-industry jobs paying minimum wage or only slightly above it, the financial hardships of many living in this area are severe.

Athens County Job & Family Services  Director Jack Frech said Friday that Athens has had this distinction of a  relatively low unemployment rate, but a high poverty rate, for more than 30  years.

“It’s because the jobs here tend to either be  decent-paying government jobs, or service-industry jobs,” he said. “There  aren’t a lot of jobs in between… So there are a lot of people in Athens County  who are working, but poor.”

With the state average of civilians working  in manufacturing at 17 percent, Athens comes in at 5.6 percent. Meanwhile,  Athens has 25.1 percent of workers in service occupations, while the state  average is at 16.5 percent.

Frech said that 30 years ago almost any job  would at least support a family. But back then the area had manufacturing and  coal-mining jobs available.

“That’s just not true anymore,” he said. “You  have people out there working full-time. If you have a couple people to support  in your family on minimum wage, you’re not going to make it. You’re going to be  poor.”

This challenges the assumption in the  public-policy debate that people on welfare don’t work, he said. Most of these  people are working, he said; they just remain so poor that they still qualify  for various forms of welfare.

Numbers  from the ACJFS show that in May 2010 Athens County had 9,945 people on food  stamps and 11,178 on Medicaid. Ohio  had 1,619,992 on food stamps and 2,012,008 on Medicaid. These numbers are  up from 2006, when Athens County averaged 7,235 on food stamps per month and  10,673 on Medicaid.

“My guess is that when you go out and talk to  folks at convenient stores, people who are clerks, you’re going to find that  most of them, if they have any kids, are very likely to still be on Medicaid  for their kids,” he said. “Some of them, depending on how big their family is,  are still going to be on food stamps.”Not as many people are on cash welfare  anymore, he said, because the amount they would receive is so low – around $300  to $400 per month – that if someone has any job at all they are likely to make  more. In order to receive cash welfare, a person’s income has to be below half  of the federal poverty level. For a family of three, income would have to be  below $10,000 per year, Frech said.

He pointed out that in addition to  service-industry jobs paying lower than manufacturing or other occupations,  they also don’t offer health benefits.

Another aspect of the situation is that the  government extends Medicaid coverage to children up to 200 percent of the  federal poverty level, but only 90 percent for adults.

“We’ve got a lot of situations out there  where these working poor folks have their kids on Medicaid… but they live in  fear of a medical problem hurting one of the adults because as soon as they  incur that medical bill they go into debt,” he said. “It’s as though we think  we’re doing the kids a favor by covering them. But when we don’t cover the  adults, we hurt the kids too.”

This situation, he said, should make leaders  take a look at what the best public policy should be. He said the earned-income  tax credit is one factor that helps, but it amounts to one lump-sum payment per  year.

“It’s great to help pay the back-bills they  owe, and pay down their credit cards, but it doesn’t help them pay the rent  every month,” he said.

ACJFS spokesperson Nick Claussen pointed out  that most service-industry jobs in the area are located in the city of Athens.  But if someone is working a service-industry job, he or she probably can’t  afford the rent in Athens, he said, and has to live somewhere else.

“That makes it hard on people here, too,  because there’s no public transportation,” he said.

Frech said Athens County is one of few in the  state that actually has an in-migration of people coming here to work.

“That’s because on any given day we have  several thousand people coming over from Meigs County or from Hocking or  Washington County, to work here,” he said. “Because we’re kind of a center of  those service-industry jobs… We actually end up drawing workers in from those  other counties even for these low-wage jobs. Because they don’t have any jobs  at all in these other counties.”

U.S. Census figures from 2000 showed 4,552  workers come into Athens County to work, while 21,279 workers both lived and  worked here. Figures also showed that 4,197 workers left Athens County to work,  leaving a net gain of 355 workers.

With all of these commuters coming into the  city of Athens, transportation becomes a huge expense, Frech said.

Also, with such a large pool of people,  including residents of other counties and temporary residents of Athens such as  Ohio University students, all competing for the same service-industry jobs,  Frech said, wages don’t go up.

“You have too large of a supply of labor,” he  said. “We’ve always had a ready supply of people who are willing to go out and  do the minimum-wage jobs.”

This  is the second article in a series focused on working people facing financial hardship in Athens County. This is  the story of residents who have had to take on low-wage jobs to make ends meet,  and the difficulties they face. This story focuses on the high number of area  residents employed in the service industry.

A  future article in this series will focus on the public policy implications of  this situation.