You'd think the end-of-life business would be recession-proof.
But even in better times, funeral homes were never as lucrative as people thought.
Workers say money is not the biggest motivator.
“If you can take someone through their worst time of life and guide them through a process that they don't understand, that they're afraid of, and let them know that everything is going to be okay -you put them at ease the best that you can -that's pretty rewarding,” said funeral director Joe Tomassi.
“There's a stereotype. People think we have more or make more than we do,” said funeral home owner Russ Weeks.
Weeks' family owns Columbia Funeral Home and nine others in Western Washington.
He said the recession had people scaling back on funeral services and there's a big cultural shift affecting the industry.
“We're no longer working, living and dying in our local communities, like we used to,” Weeks said.
Many funeral homes are struggling; still, low wages within the industry surprised us.
The median hourly wage for funeral attendants in Washington is just $10.82, about $22,500 a year.
Funeral attendant is just one job out of many careers that pays very little despite requiring a staggering amount of professionalism.
Karen Norton is a licensed veterinary technician.
Vet techs must have two years of specialized education, state and national testing, plus continuing education.
Yet, the median salary in this state is little more than $33,000 a year.
And she believes the median salary is actually inflated because there are so many LVTs working at state schools, earning considerably more.
Norton just began making $16 an hour, after years of experience.
Low pay is typical in the industry.
“It's terrible,” said Norton, “You expected you could grow up get an education, work hard and then work your way up and then have a comfortable middle-class living. You can't do that anymore.”
Other surprisingly poor-paying jobs in Washington: Ambulance drivers and attendants make just $11.18 an hour.
Bank tellers make only $13.20 an hour.
The latest available federal data show forest and conservation workers are the lowest paid in the state, making just $9.24 an hour – that’s worse than fast-food cooks.
Studies show full-time workers making so little qualify and often receive government assistance, like food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
What's behind all these low wages?
“The single biggest thing to recognize is we have a huge surplus of labor,” said economist Dick Conway. “It's tending to keep wages down.”
Conway is co-publisher of The Puget Sound Economic Forecaster.
The jobless recovery isn't our imagination.
Conway said just last summer our region reached the same employment level as 2008.
We had gone almost six years without creating one new job. It’s pretty bad,” he said.
But Conway and other economists predict wages and employment will increase in 2014.
Conway believes data showing worker productivity has dropped off should spur hiring because they show companies need to employ more people to expand.
That would be welcome relief to people struggling to make dollars stretch.
“It breaks my heart to see how far back we have slid,” said Norton. “I either have to live much longer to see things turn around. Or I do not want to live much longer.”
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