Working Press, Executive Summary
Working Press: An analysis of media coverage on low-wage work

Background

For An Economy That Works for All, a project funded by the Ford Foundation and directed by Douglas Gould and Company, Inc., seeks to raise public awareness about the barriers facing low wage workers in the U.S. and the need for government and corporate policy changes to enable this population to gain equal access to the wealth and promise of the American economy.

Because public perceptions about low wage work are largely determined and reinforced by the media, in 2001 Douglas Gould and Co. conducted a media analysis entitled Between a Rock and a Hard Place to identify and measure how low wage work is presented. The 2001 analysis helped build a communications strategy to enhance the visibility of low wage workers and the obstacles they face. We undertook the analysis so that we could:

1. Identify the major messages about low wage work that the media was conveying at that time
2. Specify which messages, if any, were being missed by the media
3. Chart a strategy for improving and expanding the media coverage of low wage work

The complete text of Between a Rock and a Hard Place is available for downloading without charge at www.economythatworks.org.

Much has changed in the public's perception of the economy since the inception of the project in 2001:

• Recent coverage in the media of the decline in health benefits and the employment practices of highly visible employers like Wal-Mart has undoubtedly had an effect on those perceptions.
• Media coverage such as this is a favorable development and further illustrates that the public is probably more receptive to our messages today than they were in 2001.
• Previous research was conducted before the latest wave of concern about the economy and its continuing erosion, tax cuts, and state budget crises.

As a result of these events, in 2006 we decided to see if and how the media coverage of low wage work had changed. We believe that media coverage serves as a proxy to help assess the effectiveness of communications efforts undertaken by Ford Foundation grantees and other groups between 2002 and 2005. Our major findings and recommendations follow.

Findings in 2006

From the point of view of advocates who are working to enhance conditions for low wage workers, this analysis points to several positive trends in media coverage:

• Low wage work and issues related to it are receiving more attention in the nation's press than they did five years ago. Of the 17 media outlets that we reviewed in both 2006 and 2001, there were approximately 20% more stories about low wage work topics in 2006 than there were in 2001. (This figure takes into account the different time periods used in the two analyses.)
• The use of the preferred terms, "low wage work" and "low wage worker" increased significantly between 2001 and 2006. Seventeen percent of the stories in our 2001 sample used the terms "low wage work" or "low wage worker," while 57% of the stories in our 2006 sample used those terms.
• In 2006, far more stories were framed from a systemic perspective than was the case in 2001, when systemic frames were virtually nonexistent. A full 81% of the stories in our 2006 sample were framed systemically, while only 17% were framed from a personal perspective. This is a major accomplishment for advocates.
• Campaigns by nonprofit advocacy groups to increase the coverage of the Earned Income Tax Credit are apparently succeeding. The EITC was featured in only 2% of the stories we reviewed in 2001, but in 15% of the articles in 2006.
• Welfare, along with the topics and terms related to it, virtually disappeared as a subject of media coverage by 2006, after comprising 12% of the sample in our 2001 analysis. This is highly advantageous, as welfare tends to call forth negative stereotypes about low wage work and workers.
• Family leave as a story topic increased from 1% of the sample in 2001 to 8% of the sample in 2006. This category also included articles that discussed paid leave, since both paid and unpaid leave were often grouped together in a single story.
• There were also a few disappointing findings of this analysis, again from the point of view of low wage workers and those who advocate on their behalf:
• Reporters are still using the label "working poor" to identify low wage workers. Forty-three percent of the stories in the 2006 sample used this term.
• Only 15% of the articles in the 2006 analysis quoted nonprofit advocates. This is a decrease from the 23% we found in 2001. One reason for this decrease may be that there is more competition from other sources. In addition, there may be a trend among reporters to quote so-called "real people" or "people on the street." This issue bears further investigation.