Why boost in L.A. tourism is not such a great thing

The Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board is boasting (via the LAT) that tourists spent $16.4 billion in 2012, up from $15.4 billion the year before. It's an impressive number, along with the 230,000 people who are employed in tourism-related positions. What's not so nice - and what gets little attention among local boosters - are the low wages many of these jobs command. Average pay in L.A. County's hospitality and tourism sector was $35,222 in 2010, according to the Economic Development Corporation - $20,000 below average - and that's based on a workforce pool of just 61,100. Broaden that out to include related jobs (restaurant workers, for instance) and wage levels fall even further. Many tourism-related positions pay at or only slightly above minimum wage - not a great economic infusion. Of course, this is getting to be an old story: L.A. has lagged both California and the U.S. in personal income growth since the aerospace industry contracted in the early 1990s. Some of those job losses were made up, but not at wages anywhere close to what defense workers were making. This is why we saw a hollowing out of the middle class, a situation that only got worse during the recession. Not to belabor, but people working in restaurants or hotels can't afford to purchase a house. Chances are they don't receive any health coverage, and most importantly, they often have limited education. So, the chances of them moving up the income ladder are not exactly great.