Paul Davidson

USA TODAY

By most measures, the U.S. labor market is back to its prerecession baseline, but many Americans still aren’t feeling it.

Despite remarkably steady payroll growth the past few years and a near-normal 5% unemployment rate, many workers are stuck in jobs that aren’t providing the salaries, advancement opportunities and standard of living they seek, according to a Wells Fargo/USA TODAY survey.

“People are seeing more jobs,” Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner says. “We just aren’t creating many good jobs. They don’t pay very well, and (many) don’t have benefits.”

Many of the new positions are part-time or freelance gigs, he says, that don’t come with benefits or job security. And, he says, “There’s a significant amount of underemployment … if you’re working in a job you’re overqualified for.”

What’s more, despite all their talk about job creation, the presidential candidates get poor grades in offering remedies to kick the nation’s job-creation engine into a higher gear, the survey shows. On the positive side, nearly half of those polled say their personal finances are in good shape even amid the stock market’s recent gyrations.

The online survey of 2,511 adults was conducted by Ipsos between Feb. 4 and Feb. 11, just before the market rally that more than reversed a 10% decline early in the year. The bear market at that time almost certainly tainted respondents’ views of the economy, says Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist of The Economic Outlook Group

While 28% rated the economy as good, about the same as in a Wells Fargo/USA TODAY survey last June, 35% said it was poor, up from 27%.

The respondents voiced a more enduring frustration with the labor market, which has recorded an average of well more than 200,000 payroll gains a month since early 2014. Nearly a third said the employment market was growing, up from 29% in June. But just 22% said it offered opportunities for workers to advance into better jobs with higher pay, compared to 28% in the previous survey.

The dim outlook is likely rooted in vestiges of the 2007 to 2009 Great Recession, economists say. During and after the downturn, employers cut millions of midlevel jobs in manufacturing, construction and office and clerical sectors, such as executive assistants. That intensified an ongoing trend that saw automation replace many positions and many factory jobs sent to countries that pay lower wages.

In the recovery, some of those midskill jobs have come back, but payroll growth has been concentrated among low-wage jobs in sectors such as restaurants, hotels and retail, many of which are part-time, and high-skill positions in fields such as computers, health care, finance and engineering. There are still far fewer midlevel jobs, says Diane Swonk, CEO of DS Economics. Many Millennials, she says, have been stymied in part by Baby Boomers who have put off retirement, leaving fewer openings, and companies that scaled back training and career development after the downturn.

Surprisingly, just 15% of those surveyed cited the difficulty of getting a raise or promotion as an obstacle to achieving their financial goals, down from 26% in June. Workers are inching ahead in their current jobs, Vitner says, but they’d prefer to be in a better place.

“There’s too many people stuck in economic purgatory,” he says.

Until she was laid off three years ago, Kimberly Siegert, 49, of Baltimore, had a steady string of full-time jobs doing administrative, bookkeeping and title work. Since then, she has bounced among temporary and part-time jobs that typically pay between $10 and $12 an hour and employ her as few as four hours a day despite sending out thousands of résumés.

In December, she earned a masters in Business Administration but worries that may be viewed as a negative for the office jobs she’s seeking. Employers are “worried that if something better comes along, I’ll leave” or that “I would be bored,” she says.

Siegert, who rents a two-bedroom apartment, relies on her 23-year-old daughter to help pay the bills but doesn’t qualify for government assistance, except for food stamps occasionally. “I have lived the past three years permanently stressed,” she says. “I keep hearing the economy is better, but I don’t see it.”

Some Americans are still hindered by the remnants of the mid-2000s housing crash. Andrea Foy, 52, of Dayton, Ohio, lost her job three years ago as a project manager for a defense contractor due to federal budget cuts. Like Siegert, she has been hopping among lower-paying, temporary administrative jobs. She believes she would have more opportunities in a different city but has been hesitant to move because she owes more on her mortgage than her home is worth. The share of such “underwater homeowners” has fallen to about 11% from a peak of 29% as home prices have risen, RealtyTrac says, but that’s still well above a normal 5%.

Even workers who are doing well have been frustrated by modest average wage growth just above 2% a year that has not kept pace with sharply rising housing and medical expenses. The survey ranked high health care costs as the No. 1 obstacle to achieving respondents’ financial goals, with 42% citing it. And just 32% said their community has reasonable cost-of-living expenses, down from 36% in June. Nationwide, both health care costs and rent were up nearly 4% in February from a year earlier, vs. just a 1% rise for inflation overall, according to the Labor Department.

That’s taking a toll on Mark Ballard, 39, of Manhattan, who earns a healthy six-figure salary as head of the media department for Channel V Media, a boutique public relations firm that serves Silicon Valley startups. Yet his wages have been stagnant the past couple of years, and he pays $1,900 to live in a modest one-bedroom on the fourth floor of a walk-up, nearly double the $1,000 he paid three years ago when he shared a larger apartment with two roommates. He also has shelled out thousands of dollars for surgeries and rehabilitation after he shredded his knee in a series of accidents, with rising health care premiums and deductibles forcing him to pick up a growing share of the bill.

“I’m a successful guy working for a successful company,” he says, noting that he’s single with no kids to support. That, he says, should allow him to afford a more comfortable apartment, but even he feels the financial squeeze after paying his rent, subway card fee and cable bill.

Overall, 46% of those surveyed rated their personal finances as good, while just 21% said their situation was poor. Half gave an upbeat appraisal in June, though the slight decline can be attributed to the stock sell-off that slashed portfolio values early this year, the economists say.

Meanwhile, cheap gasoline is leaving Americans more discretionary cash, and low interest rates are making home and auto ownership more affordable, Vitner says. Households also have whittled down much of the debt they built up in the mid-2000s credit boom even as their home values have risen, making them feel wealthier, Baumohl says.

Those benefits are only partly offsetting tepid average wage growth. Just 17% of the survey participants said Americans in their community can have financial security in retirement, down from 21% in June.

After paying his expenses, “I’m not saving a ton,” Ballard says, comparing his balance sheet to the financial security his parents enjoyed. “I would think that at this stage of my life I’d have more savings.”

He’s faring better than Siegert and Foy, who have depleted their retirement savings to pay living expenses following their layoffs.

The Americans surveyed have little faith the presidential candidates, Republican or Democrat, will ride to the rescue with a bounty of high-paying jobs. Nearly half gave them poor ratings on offering ideas to grow the labor market, create a healthy business climate, strengthen the middle class and ensure the education system turns out a skilled workforce. Only 37% to 41% said they're doing a good job in those categories while nearly half said they're doing a poor job.

Ballard gives more credit to Bernie Sanders, adding the Vermont senator is targeting the key problem of income gains flowing to top earners. Siegert backs Republican front-runner businessman Donald Trump.

“At least as a businessman he has better ideas … than a lifelong politician,” she says.

Yet while all the candidates are promising more jobs, “No one is saying how," Foy says. "And no one is saying what types of jobs they’re going to create.”

More Real Economy stories

Retirement, cost-of-living fears cloud Nevadans’ more positive economic outlook

In Indiana, confidence in jobs but not wages

Economic outlook in S.D. outshines national view