A new report blames poverty- level wages for contributing to Buffalo’s intractable poverty.

The Partnership for the Public Good, using state Department of Labor statistics, found 125,000 workers in Western New York are in occupations typically paying less than $20,000 annually. Another 40,000 earn between $20,000 and $23,000.

The report, “Exploring the World of Low Wage Work,” also found low-wage workers suffer disproportionately because employers failed to pay them overtime or purposely misclassified them as independent contractors to avoid giving benefits. In New York State, more than 700,000 workers were misclassified based on an audit by the state Department of Labor from 2002 to 2005, the report says.

“If we are going to make a dent in poverty, we need to improve wages, benefits and protections for low-wage workers,” said Sam Magavern, co-director of the Partnership for the Public Good.

“When people talk about poverty reduction, they typically talk about more jobs, which is true, and the need for better education, which is also true,” he said, “but they often forget to talk about the huge numbers of workers who are still not making enough to earn their way out of poverty.”

To underscore that point, the report notes that 74 percent of children in New York State live in low-income families even where one parent is employed.

Law students from a course Magavern teaches at the University at Buffalo did primary research and drafting of the report.

Magavern said the sheer numbers of low-paying jobs in Western New York will continue to make it difficult for Buffalo to turn the corner without a living wage and benefits.

“We can’t simply educate our way out of poverty, because, no matter how educated we are, we will still need those 12,000 janitors, 8,800 teacher’s aides, 7,400 home health aides, 4,320 child care workers, 20,170 retail salespeople, and all the other workers in low-wage parts of the service sector,” Magavern said.

The Partnership for the Public Good is a member of the Canal Side Community Alliance, a coalition that has been pushing for binding agreements for the Canal Side waterfront project, including a living wage provision for businesses with 20 or more employees.

The living wage in Buffalo is considered $9.90 an hour with benefits, $11.11 without. Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp., the state authority overseeing Canal Side, has said it cannot dictate to private companies how much to pay employees, warning such a requirement could threaten the $294.8 million development.

The report also notes that Western New York has not been immune to the increase in suburban poverty nationally, which by 2005 had seen the suburban poor outnumbering city counterparts by more than one million, according to the Brookings Institution.