New Hampshire is expected to add more than 100,000 jobs to its economy by 2014. Unfortunately, many workers will need two of them to afford a place to live.

Recent reports from the state's Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau and the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority paint a gloomy picture for Labor Day. While the cost of living, especially fuel and housing, is going through the roof, wages are stagnant for most workers. And the ranks of workers in low-wage occupations will continue to expand.

The occupation projected to add the most jobs, retail sales, pays a median wage of $9.70 an hour. At that rate, a full-time worker could afford $500 a month for housing. But the typical one-bedroom apartment goes for almost $800 a month, and a typical two-bedroom apartment rents for over $1,000.

A sales clerk with a housemate also working full time has a chance. But for a single parent, forget about it.

Other fast-growing, low-paying jobs are those of teaching assistants, fast-food workers, nursing aides, cashiers, janitors and waiters.

Only two of the 10 job categories expected to produce the most new jobs in the coming decade pay enough for workers to afford the rental housing New Hampshire has to offer. Forty-five percent of the 28,000 new jobs in the top 10 categories pay less than $10 an hour.

It's not just low-wage workers who are caught in this bind. As the Monitor reported last week, the state faces a massive exodus of young adults who can't find affordable housing. If this trend is not reversed, the state faces a labor shortage that could throw the economy into a tailspin.

The trend of low-wage job creation goes along with wage stagnation for most working people. While productivity - the amount of output relative to the amount of labor -has risen steadily, only people at the tip-top of the income scale are winning. Even workers making $80,000 a year, more than what 90 percent of the workforce earns, have seen the cost of living rise faster than their salaries.

Part of the problem the state faces is the long-term decline in manufacturing, which is projected to lose 2,700 jobs during the next few years. Manufacturing, which used to provide jobs with decent pay and benefits for workers without advance educations, has fallen from 116,000 jobs in 1980, a quarter of the workforce, to 80,000 jobs in 2004, 11 percent of the workforce. As the latest employment projections study mildly puts it, "Globalization and international competition will take on a bigger role in the economy."

The causes of the persistent gap between what New Hampshire workers can afford for housing and what they are paid for their labor include federal cuts in housing assistance, the decline in union membership, the resistance in Congress and at the State House to raising the minimum wage and the offshoring of local jobs to foreign sweatshops.

Some of the solutions are within reach. Others are a bit thornier. But it is reasonable to expect our elected officials to address them. With elections approaching, a few questions for candidates come to mind:

• Will you support raising the minimum wage, which has been stagnant at the state and federal levels since 1997?

• What measures will you support to increase the supply of housing affordable for low-income workers?

• Will you oppose policies that encourage outsourcing of jobs from New Hampshire to foreign sweatshops? What steps will you take to revive manufacturing?

This Labor Day, let's make it possible for people who work full time to provide themselves and their children with adequate food and shelter. Let's agree that honoring workers means paying a living wage.

(Arnie Alpert is New Hampshire program coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that works for social justice and peace. He is also a member of the Monitor's board of contributors.)(next page »)