In Massachusetts, the phrase " working families " has become all the rage on the gubernatorial campaign trail. Tom Birmingham bills himself as " a powerful, effective, progressive friend " of the working class. Robert Reich claims he’ll " do the most to promote economic fairness " if he wins come November. Warren Tolman says he speaks for those " working too hard just to make ends meet. " Such talk is no accident, given that more and more people are struggling these days. According to The State of Working Massachusetts 2002: As Good As It Gets?, a new report released by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center (MBPC), low- and moderate-income residents are worse off than they were a decade ago, despite the increased wealth that marked the 1990s. The Phoenix caught up with Jeff McLynch, the MBPC policy analyst who authored the new study, to discuss the state of working families here.

Q: People talk about how the ’90s boom was really a bust. Is this just rhetoric?

A: No. This report, which was released in conjunction with a report put out by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC, gives a broad picture of the economy by looking at wages, working hours, and benefits at the peak of the 1980s and 1990s. One finding is that income in Massachusetts has grown more slowly than in most states and, for many people, it has stagnated or declined.

Q: Were there any unexpected findings?

A: One surprise is the fact that Massachusetts is one of only two states where the rich truly got richer and the poor truly got poorer. In every other state except Massachusetts and Connecticut, people in the bottom 20 percent [of incomes] moved up. Here, people whose incomes average $15,000 a year fell by seven percent in the ’90s. At the same time, those in the top 20 percent — who earn $165,000 a year — rose by 13.5 percent. With economic growth as prolonged and widespread as we saw in the ’90s, you’d expect everyone to do better. But here, the poor didn’t gain any ground.

Q: What happened in Massachusetts? Why are we so different from the rest of the country?

A: One possible reason is that the share of manufacturing jobs fell, while jobs in service and retail increased. Manufacturing jobs offer better pay and benefits. Massachusetts also stands out because it has a higher income inequality than all but four states. The average income in the top 20 percent is 10 times greater than that in the bottom 20.

Q: So what do these findings mean for the state as a whole?

A: With the elections in full swing, we’re hoping candidates will talk about these issues. People talk about the fact that there is a fiscal crisis and that more budget cuts are needed. But that ignores the Commonwealth’s responsibility to help people who’ve contributed to a decade of economic growth. People who make up the bottom 40 percent of the income scale saw wages fall by 7.3 percent. So we’re not just talking about really low-income people. We’re talking about middle-class families who work harder and have less to show for it. Candidates like to talk about restoring prosperity, but what they need to understand is that prosperity wasn’t widely shared in the first place.