On Monday, June 23, the White House will convene a summit to “discuss policy solutions that can make a real difference in the lives of working families and ensure America’s global competitiveness in the coming decades.”
The Economic Policy Institute has been championing policies that support working Americans for decades. EPI’s Family Budget Calculator shows just how much families need to secure a modest living in their communities. Many working families would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage—EPI research shows that 4.7 million working mothers and 2.6 million fathers would get a raise if the minimum wage was increased to $10.10 an hour.
Raising wages for all Americans should be a top policy priority. This month, EPI launched Raising America’s Pay, a multiyear initiative to study and promote the need for broad-based wage growth. Most Americans rely on earnings from work to make ends meet, but wage growth has been nonexistent for the broad middle class for the past three-and-half decades, even as our economy becomes more productive. Raising America’s Pay will highlight policies to jumpstart American’s stagnant wages, such as strengthening overtime protection, cracking down on wage theft, and restoring workers’ abilities to bargain collectively.
EPI economists and experts will attend the summit and are available to discuss this research and other policies to support working familes. Much of EPI’s research on working families can be found in The State of Working America, 12th Edition.