01:00 AM EST on Friday, December 17, 2004

Go where the jobs are, adults have advised young people for generations. Sadly, where the jobs are these days, the wages aren't that hot.

Both nationally and in Rhode Island, the industries seeing growth in jobs pay a lot less than industries in which employment is contracting. In Rhode Island, a job in a shrinking industry pays on average $8,532 a year more than one in a growing industry, says an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. Nationally, this gap averages $20,000.

Jobs recently lost in such higher-paying fields as telecommunications, technology and financial services have not come back. The same goes for manufacturing, in which the average wage in Rhode Island is $53,600. Insurance is another high-paying industry in the Ocean State, with an average wage of $53,000, and a declining number of jobs.

But there's brisk hiring in restaurants and supermarkets, where pay is far lower. Economists say consumers armed with tax cuts and borrowed money (from refinanced mortgages and overheated credit cards) have been taking their cash to restaurants and stores -- hence the Jobs Available signs at those locales. The economists note that many of these jobs are part-time, contributing to the lower earnings.

Other analyses cite the soaring costs of health insurance as a damper on hiring. The best jobs come with health coverage, and employers are reportedly afraid to take on new people for whom they'd have to buy health insurance. And so, rather than add to their personnel, these companies just work the employees they have harder. Not helping is a general uncertainty about the direction of the economy: Many employers say they want to wait until they're sure the recovery is for real before they risk adding employees. And so they wait and wait and . . .

These trends appear in new Census data showing that the number of uninsured Americans rose by more than 1 million in 2003. And the ranks of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million.

Southeastern New Englanders often don't recognize how lucky they are. While the median household income for the nation stands at $43,318, it is $48,854 in Rhode Island and $53,610 in Massachusetts. The percentage of people living in poverty nationally is 12.5 percent, but 11.3 percent in Rhode Island and 9.4 percent in Massachusetts.

As for health coverage, Rhode Island remains the state with the second-lowest percentage of uninsured people (after Minnesota), although it reported a 1.3-percent increase in residents lacking insurance during 2003.

Rhode Islanders not only have relatively good access to health care; they also have good access to health-care jobs. Medical services are one high-paying industry that continues to expand in Rhode Island. Medical workers who serve patients outside hospital settings are especially employable, and their salaries average $42,300 a year.

But the bigger picture, of course, is mixed. The loss of manufacturing jobs continues to drain the pool of good jobs throughout our region.

The problem of job quality is complex, involving trade, education and other issues. But we hope that political leaders will take an especially close look at the health-care factor. Our employment-based health-insurance system is collapsing. Any policy that frees employers from the burden of insuring their workers -- and controls health-care costs -- would also free them to hire more people.