Workers in communities across the country have to work a second or third job to support themselves and their families — a result of a lack of good jobs that pay a living wage with benefits. Real wages have barely grown over the last forty years and almost a quarter of workers don’t earn enough to keep a family out of poverty. And while President Trump brags about how low the headline unemployment rate is, he fails to mention that the Black unemployment rate is nearly twice as high as the white unemployment rate and the share of prime-age Americans with a job is still below its peak in the 2000s.
Medium
August 22, 2019
An analysis released Aug. 14 by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, found that chief executive compensation had grown 940 percent since 1978, by one measure, while typical worker compensation had risen just 12 percent over the same period.
The Washington Post
August 22, 2019
A study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute released earlier this year indicated that compensation for America’s top CEOs increased 940% between 1978 and 2018, while the average worker salary rose 12% over the same 40-year period. Wage growth of very high earners in that period rose about 339.2% during that time.
GM Authority
August 22, 2019
The new Business Roundtable statement tells us that a core corporate principle is investing in employees. Yet an Economic Policy Institute report released earlier this month found that over the previous 40 years (1978-2018), corporate CEO wages increased 940 percent (adjusted for inflation) versus an average increase in median wages of only 12 percent.
Nonprofit Quarterly
August 22, 2019
As I reported Tuesday, compensation for CEOs increased by 940% from 1978 to 2018, while pay for the average worker rose by a miserable 12% over the same 40-year period, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Los Angeles Times
August 22, 2019
However, well over a decade later, Americans need the concept of lifestyle design more than ever. Americans today work longer hours than they did 40 years ago – 7.8% more hours, according to the Economic Policy Institute – yet the Pew Research Center reports that real incomes are lower today than they were in the 1970s.
Money Crashers
August 21, 2019
Navarro’s views find some support from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which estimates American job losses, by state, due to China trade from 2001 to 2017 as follows:
- California – 560,000 jobs
- Texas – 314,000 jobs
- New York – 183,500 jobs
- Illinois – 148,200 jobs
- Pennsylvania – 136,100 jobs
Fox Business
August 21, 2019
At the same time, there are some not-so-nice forces behind the trend. Economic Policy Institute senior economist Elise Gould tells the WSJ that women are looking to education as a way to narrow the gender pay gap. I wrote about Georgetown data on the subject last year and it ain’t pretty: Women with a bachelor’s degree earn the same as men with an associate’s degree—a disparity that persists as you climb the rungs of the academic ladder. In other words, some women may be obtaining advanced degrees simply so they can make as much as less educated men.
Fortune
August 21, 2019
Everything Graeber says sounds like gospel right up until the last part—there’s an argument to be made that a significant part of the problem is that a baffling number of people do think bullshit jobs serve meaningful purposes. Employers are actually much better than Graeber gives them credit for at making you feel like your work is meaningful. And that’s without pundits on national broadcasting informing you of the dire state of the economy and the vital role of every man, woman, and child in ensuring that the wheels of civilization keep turning (and inveighing against the laziness of the unemployed, who are obviously neglecting their civic duty).Apparently, two out of five Americans believe the country is facing a critical shortage of STEM workers, even though current university students are twice as likely to study STEM as their parents were, and a study from the Economic Policy Institute found that A) the only reason more people aren’t working in STEM is because the pay is low and the jobs are bad, and B) in reality there’s still no shortage. Researchers from the University of Warwick and the University of Leicester found that a similar state of affairs exists in the U.K.
Current Affairs
August 21, 2019
Compensation for top business leaders rose more than 940.3% over four decades, according to a survey by the Economic Policy Institute. The typical worker’s wages grew 11.9% during the same period. Who are the consumers Trump and Kudlow are talking about? Their statements are disproved by the statistics.
Star Tribune
August 21, 2019