EPI President Lawrence Mishel released the following statement in advance of the AFL-CIO’s National Summit on Raising Wages today:
“Wages for the vast majority of workers are stagnant, and have been for some time. This is the most critical economic issue we face in 2015 is, and I’m pleased that the AFL-CIO is calling attention to this issue—through tomorrow’s wages summit, and through their ongoing work. Most of the income middle-class families receive comes from wages earned through work, and if we are going to address poverty, middle-class income stagnation and inequality, we must provide growing real wages for working Americans. The economy already produces substantial increases in income and wealth and will continue to do so into the future. What is missing is a policy focus on wage growth. We can start by raising the minimum wage, expanding overtime protection, strengthening collective bargaining, and extending labor protections to undocumented immigrant workers.”
The Economic Policy Institute provided a number of materials for the AFL-CIO Wages Summit, including:
- Causes of Wage Stagnation
- Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts
- The Erosion of Collective Bargaining Has Widened the Gap Between Productivity and Pay
EPI’s Raising America’s Pay initiative is a multiyear research and public education initiative to make wage growth an urgent national policy priority. By explaining wage and benefit patterns—and the role of labor market policies and practices in suppressing pay—the initiative is identifying policies that will generate broad-based wage growth.