Article on employment and poverty

In many parts of the world, employment does not necessarily provide a path out of poverty.
Indeed, sub-Saharan Africa had one of the highest rates of employment in the world in 2013, and
yet it was the world's poorest region (International Labour Organization, 2014). According to a
2014 analysis by the ILO, 11.9% of the world's employed people made less than $1.25 per day in
2013 (“Table A14a. Working Poor Indicators, World and Regions (US$1.25 a Day),” in Global
Employment Trends 2014: Risk of a Jobless Recovery?). Also in 2013 in Southeast Asia and the
Pacific 11.2% of employed people made less than $1.25 per day, and in South Asia 24.6% of
employed people made less than $1.25 per day. The proportion of sub-Saharan Africa's
employed population that made less than $1.25 per day in 2013 was 39.2%.

When a poverty threshold of $2 per day is used, these percentages climb dramatically. Indeed, in
South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, employment and poverty routinely go together, as nearly
two-thirds of employed people in both regions made less than $2 per day in 2013. The number of
extremely poor and the poor as a share of total employed people had been declining since 2000
in all regions of the developing world, and the ILO projects the declines to continue.
Nevertheless, these statistics underscore the falseness of one of the most persistent stereotypes
about the poor: the notion that poverty is the product of an aversion to work (Global
Employment Trends 2014: Risk of a Jobless Recovery?).

The employed are more likely to escape extreme poverty in the developed world than in much of
the developing world, but even in the United States, the country with more high-paying jobs, on
average, than any other in the world, 7% of the labor force (the total number of people who had
either been working or looking for work for at least 27 weeks) lived below the official poverty
line in 2013 (“Table A. Poverty Status of Persons and Primary Families in the Labor Force for 27
Weeks or More, 2007–2013,” in tistics underscore the falseness of one of the most persistent
stereotypes about the poor: the notion that poverty is the product of an aversion to work (A
Profile of the Working Poor, 2013, U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, July
2015). This working-poor rate of 7% marked a significant increase since the start of the global
economic crisis in 2007, when 5.1% of those in the U.S. labor force for 27 weeks or more lived
in poverty. The working-poor rate in the United States was much higher for young people,
African Americans and Hispanics, and women. Nearly a quarter (23%) of all African American
women aged 20 to 24 years who had been in the labor force for 27 weeks lived below the
poverty line in 2013, as did a comparable proportion (23.6%) of African American men in the
same age group (“Tab. People in the Labor Force for 27 Weeks or More: Poverty Status by Age,
Gender, Race, and Hispanic or Latino Ethnicity, 2013,” in A Profile of the Working Poor, 2013,
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, July 2015).

Reference

https://www.gale.com/open-access/poverty