Gaming in Massachusetts: Can Casinos Bring “Good Jobs” to the Commonwealth?

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In this report we examine the quality of the jobs in the United States gaming industry in order to assess the potential impact of establishing up to three destination casinos in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We focus our analysis on workers without a college education since nearly ninety percent of gaming workers have less than a college degree. In addition, we analyze enabling legislation in five states that have legalized gaming and compare them to the legislation proposed in Massachusetts in 2007.

Our examination of the U.S. gaming industry shows that, among workers without a college education, gaming workers in casino hotels enjoy higher pay and more generous job benefits than workers in non-gaming jobs. Gaming workers in casino hotels are more likely to receive employer-provided health insurance than non-gaming workers, especially health insurance plans in which employers pay for part or all of the health care premium. They are also more likely to be included in an employer's pension or retirement plan. Poverty among gaming casino hotel workers and their families is practically non-existent as none of these workers or their families live below, and very few live near, the poverty line.

Additionally we find that unionization contributes significantly to the high job quality in the gaming industry. In unionized casino hotels, higher pay and job benefits extend beyond gaming workers to workers such as housekeepers, dishwashers and cooks who work in the casinos' hotels and restaurants. In cities where unions represent workers at casino hotels, wages are high enough to support families, and workers enjoy employer-provided benefits such as health insurance, pensions, and career ladders. Consequently, these workers can live middle class lifestyles, owning their own homes, sending their children to college and enjoying secure retirements.

In comparing existing legislation from states with legalized gaming to enabling legislation proposed in 2007 in Massachusetts, we find significant differences in the extent to which the provisions address wages, benefits and other measures of job quality. This review shows that other states have largely ignored job quality and other workforce development issues in gaming.

In contrast, the 2007 Massachusetts proposal addressed wages, benefits, training, mentoring, childcare and a number of other areas of worker protection. The 2007 proposal was unique in its groundbreaking provisions that, if enforced, could ensure that gaming jobs would be good quality jobs for Massachusetts' workers.

Workforce development efforts in Massachusetts must include strategies to address improving the quality of entry-level jobs. Such strategies are needed since two-thirds of Massachusetts workers have a high school diploma or less. In Massachusetts, as in the United States in general, workers without college degrees often earn wages that are too low to support a family and have substantially lower rates of employer-provided health insurance and retirement benefits. Our findings show that the casino industry—particularly the unionized sector of the casino hotel industry—can provide good jobs with good wages and benefits for the parts of the workforce that are often neglected, namely those without college degrees, women, and people of color. Provisions in the proposed enabling legislation in Massachusetts that encourage unionization as well as family sustaining wages and benefits should be protected and enhanced so that more workers in the Commonwealth can provide for their families, advance in their careers, and access the child care, health care and retirement benefits that so many currently lack.

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