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to 90 percent of all jobs provide some kind of service. Up the
road in Hatt County, 76 percent of all jobs are service-related,
while in Savannah (Bryan, Chatham and Effingham counties)
it's 86 percent according to the Georgia Department of Labor.
Service-producing jobs can also include administrative assis
tants, hospital employees or people who provide professional
Andrew Bir, a line cook at Jason's Deli, fixes a sandwich plate just before the restaurant’s dinner rush. Jobs in the restaurant
industry are plentiful in Clarke County, but also rank as the lowest paid.
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J oshua Scott 19, is looking forward to working, the
19-year-old graduated earlier this month from Athens
Community Career Academy with training as an elec
trician, and before he even had his diploma in his
hands, he was out looking for a job. "I just want to work," he
said on a recent afternoon at the Georgia Department of Labor
office. "I like working with my hands."
With some luck, Scott will be able
to take his training and turn it into
a job with a private electrician or an
electrical components company in town,
where the average salary, according
to the Georgia Department of Labor,
is about $900 a week. On the other
end of Scott's job-search spectrum are
Athens' far more plentiful jobs in food
service, hospitality and retail areas.
As the commercial hub of Northeast
Georgia, Athens-Clarke County has more
than 14,000 of these positions, paying
$250-$435 a week before taxes.
Their prevalence is a thorn in the
side of the county's battle with poverty.
With almost 37 percent of ACCs popula
tion living in poverty, having a decent-
paying job is a key factor in overcoming
that statistic. According to 2011 federal
poverty level thresholds, an average
family of four would need to make more
than $23,050 a year—about $443 a
week—to live above the poverty line.
The University of Georgia is often
cited as a key reason for Athens'
service-heavy economy, due both to the
many low-wage, often temporary jobs
it offers and to the large pool of cheap,
part-time student labor it supplies. But
the prevalence of service-industry jobs
is "probably more pronounced here, not
necessarily because it's a college town,"
said Doug Bachtel, University of Georgia
professor and demographer, but because
"its a social, cultural, retail economic
hub of Northeast Georgia."
For generations, Bachtel said, resi
dents in surrounding counties came to
Athens to shop and dine, creating a cul
ture with plenty of retail and hospitality
services^ But Athens-Clarke County also
is unique because of its low unemploy
ment rate—averaging 7.5 percent last
year, compared with 9.8 percent state
wide—and high poverty rate, which,
according to the 2010 U.S. Census, was
36.7 percent. Those two statistics are
linked, Bachtel said, because an abun
dance of-low-paying jobs translates into
an abundance of low-income families.
"[We need] better paying jobs across
the board, and a better mixture of jobs
that pay well," said Linda Lloyd, direc
tor of the Economic Justice Coalition,
which has pushed for years to bring the
base salary for University of Georgia
employees up beyor»d its current $11.50
per hour. "Because you're never going to
have enough... we just need to advocate for better paying jobs
here in Athens."
A variety of persistent factors has combined with an eco
nomic recession to make things especially difficult for Athens
families trying to make ends meet But with the right tools in
place—and they are there—there's a solution.
By the Numbers
In the Athens-Clarke metropolitan statistical area (which
also includes Madison, Oconee and Oglethorpe counties), close
8 FLAGPOLE.COM -JUNE 6,2012
services. But the vast majority of Clarke County's service
providing jobs fall into the retail and hospitality/ food service
areas.
And while Clarke County's unemployment rate looks good
compared with the rest of the state or even the nation, it's
nearly doubled in the past five years. From 2001-2007, the
unemployment rate held steady at around 4 percent In 2009
the rate jumped to more than 7 percent, and it's been between
7 and 8 percent since then.
That, Bachtel said, reflects another difficulty facing ACCs
poor: jobs that would normally go to workers with only a high
school diploma are now going to workers with some college
education. This leaves the majority of Clarke County's impover
ished population working part-time or temporary jobs.
"You're dealing with a lot erf educated competition [for
jobs]," Bachtel said. "You can't make it with just a high school
diploma anymore. You have to go way beyond that It's gotta ’
be tech school or vocational school or community college,
because of the technological orienta
tion that we have. Those computers—
those suckers are everywhere... And if
you don't know all about them, you're
sucking air, or you're minimum-wage.
And that just isn't going to make it in
today's society."
When it comes to residents living in
poverty, the U.S. Census reports that
whites and blacks share the burden—
roughly 36 percent of each race lives
below the poverty line. Another 44
percent of the county's Hispanic popula
tion lives in poverty, though—and that
figure comes with a 20 percent margin
for error, according to 2010 figures.
And while students who live off-campus
could count toward these figures, not
all UGA students contribute to the pov
erty statistics: the Census figures don't
include students living in college dorms
(nor people living in "institutions," such
as jails).
Clarke County's poverty level has
more than doubled in about a decade.
In 1999, according to the 2011 Georgia
County Guide, 14.8 percent of the popu
lation lived below the poverty level.
But living in poverty is also rela
tive; family size and living situation
factor into how much money is brought
home each month. One way to mea
sure how well a family is living, said
Keith McNeely, Sr., director of ACC's
Department of Human and Economic
Development, is to look at housing
costs as a percentage of a family's
income. When more than 30 percent of
a family's monthly income is spent on
housing, that family is "overburdened,"
he said.
"You have to take a look at fair
market rates... and how much housing
someone can buy based on a family's
size," he said. "If you're paying more
than 30 percent of your household
income on living expenses, it's cost-
prohibitive."
And in Athens, three- and four-
bedroom apartments are typically mar
keted to student* at a "per-bedroom"
cost, which tends to inflate rental
prices overall, McNeeley said. A study
his department conducted 10 years ago
found that while Clarke County didn't
have a shortage of housing, there
weren't enough places for families that
earn 30 percent or less of the median
area family income. Today, the median
stands at $53,600.
Education as Solution
For decades, Paul DeLargy has helped students at all lev
els—elementary through college—learn to be entrepreneurs.
DeLargy is the director of Georgia REAL Enterprises, a national
nonprofit that helps teach students of all ages to run their own
businesses and be self-sufficient; he also taught at UGA and
developed entrepreneurship programs at the Small Business
Development Center there. He is currently a contracted consul
tant with the state Department of Education. The way DeLargy