Mary C. King

Describes the long, irregular, badly paid and too often unpaid hours home-based childcare providers work to care for the children of Oregon’s working class families.

Examines the crisis in affordable child care on working families, and its relationship to high rates of young children living in poverty.

Presents the significant, illegal abuses experienced by immigrant construction workers on the job, including wage theft; poor safety practices and injury; lack of drinking water, protective equipment and legally required breaks; and physical intimidation of those who speak out. Community Benefits Agreements for projects involving public dollars, such as the one piloted by the City of Portland Water Bureau, are the most effective tool we have for ensuring decent working conditions and opportunities for women, people of color and people from low-income backgrounds.

Examines the impacts of wildly variable work schedules, changed with little notice, that are now commonplace in retail, food service, hospitality and other industries. Interviews and analysis of American Community Survey data show that these occupations have become low-wage poverty traps that make it impossible for employees to arrange regular childcare, attend school, obtain a second job, plan family activities or even get enough sleep. Survey respondents reported severe stress on family lives and relationships, financial difficulties and negative health impacts. A few months after this report was written, Oregon became the first state to pass a relatively comprehensive scheduling law.

Shows that Oregon's large care economy - paid and unpaid care for children, seniors, the ill and adults with developmental disabilities - is largely invisible, underfunded, and a source of stress, poverty, inequality and hardship for Oregonian families. Women, people of color and the working poor are the hardest hit by unpaid care demands, insufficient care and low wages for care work regardless of education and skills. A strong economic case for public investment in care is based on high rates of return and improved quality of life.

Investigates the impact of the loss of access to drivers licenses for undocumented, predominantly Mexican-born, immigrants in Oregon, as a result of new state legislation. Interviews with nearly 400 Spanish-speaking Oregon residents reveal significant distress, uncertainty and fear of deportation, as well as reduced access to employment, education, medical and social services, church attendance and recreation.

Interviews with Mexican immigrant workers in Portland, Oregon reveal them to be concentrated in particular occupations, working in what we term a "semi-formal" labor market. That labor market is characterized by a lack of compliance with minimum wage and over-time laws, frequent turnover, a limited range of earnings and reliance on migrant social networks to substitute for management action in hiring and vacation replacement.

Describes effective policy solutions to raise women’s incomes toward parity men’s.  Policy strategies fall into three categories: (1) those aimed at reducing the negative impact of childrearing on women's incomes (strengthening our anti-poverty programs, subsidizing childcare, providing public support for parents and equitable social security); (2) those that raise the pay for "women's jobs," (increasing the minimum wage, implementing pay equity, and union organizing); and (3) those intended to move women into higher paid jobs (affirmative action and access to the skilled trades and STEM occupations).