This policy failure, exacerbated by the effects of technological progress, led to what the economist Dennis J. Snower calls as the “decoupling” of economic and social trajectories: even as GDP grew, real wages and prospects for advancement stagnated or deteriorated for large swaths of the population. For example, the Economic Policy Institute reports that, from 1979 to 2018, net productivity in the US rose 70%, but real hourly wages increased by only 12%. Today, 14% of Americans – more than half of whom are people of color – are “working poor” (full-time workers with incomes that are less than 200% of the poverty line).
Project Syndicate
November 22, 2019
The economic observation that seems to obviously confirm this conclusion is the longtime and growing gap between worker productivity and worker pay. Perhaps the most frequently cited version of this supposed economic reality comes from the left-wing Economic Policy Institute, which calculates a 70 percent rise in worker productivity since 1979 versus a mere 12 percent rise in pay, all adjusted for inflation. As EPI explains the big disparity, “This means that although Americans are working more productively than ever, the fruits of their labors have primarily accrued to those at the top and to corporate profits, especially in recent years.””
Jewish Journal
November 22, 2019
As the rich are getting richer, wages for low-pay workers have stagnated. These are the jobs that are disproportionately held by women and especially women of color—and though their paychecks are not increasing, the costs of housing and childcare continue to rise. One June 2019 report by the Economic Policy Institute even revealed that workers’ wages and bonuses actually declined after the passage of the 2017 tax law.
Ms.
November 22, 2019
A 2017 study by the Economic Policy Institute estimated that in New York State, employers cheat 300,000 workers a year out of $965 million by paying them less than minimum wage. The federal Department of Labor says its Wage and Hour Division recovered “a record” total in the 2019 fiscal year of $322 million in pay owed to workers.
LaborPress.org
November 22, 2019
LATINA PAY GAP: As of today, Latina workers are paid the same as their white male counterparts. That’s the good news. The bad news, according to an Economic Policy Institute report, is that Latinas are paid the same as non-Latino men were paid last year; in other words, Latina workers had to work eleven additional months to earn the same as their white male counterparts did in 2018. Yet another way of saying this is that Latinas earn 53 cents on their white male counterparts’ dollar. The pay gap “persists across the wage distribution, within occupations, and among those with the same amount of education,” according to EPI.
Politico
November 22, 2019
Workers’ rights are a key election platform for the Democratic candidates as they look to appeal to working and middle-class voters who have seen labour rights eroded, minimal wage increases and the rise of an increasingly precarious working environment. A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute found that CEO compensation in the US has grown 940% since 1978. But typical worker compensation has risen only 12% during that time.
The Guardian
November 22, 2019
The long-term trend of wages not keeping up with the prices of essentials hasn’t improved much, as it’s been reported that minimum-wage workers can’t afford a two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the US. (The Economic Policy Institute—7/19/18, 2/5/19—found that if the minimum wage tracked productivity growth since the 1960s, it would now be over $20 an hour.)
Truthdig
November 22, 2019
The Economic Policy Institute recently found that corporate boards have seen fit to increase CEO pay by 940% since 1978 while compensation for the typical worker has risen only 12%.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
November 22, 2019
The big picture: With a national unemployment rate of less than 4%, public sector jobs are not as enticing for experienced workers who can command higher salaries in the private sector.
- State and local government employees made 3.7% to 8.2% less than their counterparts in the private sector in 2018, per the Economic Policy Institute.
Axios
November 22, 2019
As my colleague Michelle Chen noted on a recent episode of our podcast Belabored, “Nonprofit is a legal and financial designation, it’s not a stamp of ethical quality.” In that same episode, Kayla Blado, president of the NPEU and a staffer at the Economic Policy Institute, explains in an interview that nonprofit workers are often willing to work harder and longer in the service of the mission, and that their drive to organize is often coming from that same place of commitment to that mission.
“They don’t want to jump ship,” she says, if the working conditions leave something to be desired, They want to stay and make the workplace better.
Common Dreams
November 22, 2019