The wage gap has been narrowing for women, but it varies widely by race, class, and education level, a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. found.
The Economic Policy Institute today released its annual report on American wages. It shows, in essence, a continuation of wage inequality trends that have been going on for decades: men earn more than women; white people earn more than Latinos or black people, who are perpetually trapped at the bottom of the income scale; and, overwhelmingly, the gains of the entire economy are captured by those at the very top.
Although wages are increasing for most American employees, growth continues to be sluggish in an economy with relatively low unemployment, according to a new report by the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute.
The As You Sow report documents how CEO pay has soared across industries in the past decade, with the average CEO salary growing by more than $2 million from 2013 to 2017, according to Institutional Shareholder Services, while the Economic Policy Institute has found a 17.6 percent increase in average CEO salary, among the 350 largest corporations in the United States, since 2016.
In 2014, Arizona families paid an average day care cost of $9,437 a year, according to an Economic Policy Institute report that says high-quality child care is financially out of reach for most families.
It’s true that many people with jobs are still poor. In 2016, census data showed that 7.2 million people were working, but still lived below the poverty line. It’s also true that a lot of workers — nearly 40 percent, or 60 million — earn less than $15 an hour, according to government data compiled by the liberal Economic Policy Institute. But wages have also been rising in the past several years for lower-income workers, thanks in part to higher minimum wages. For those at the 20th percentile of earnings — meaning that 80 percent of workers earn more — their wages rose 4.8 percent last year, more than any other income group, according to that institute.
Furthermore, the Seattle study was not free of flaws. As the Economic Policy Institute’s Ben Zipperer has explained, the study missed at least two important pieces: it did not account for the improving Seattle-area economy prior to the minimum wage increase; and it left out workers for companies, such as chain restaurants, with multiple locations (such workers accounted for nearly one-third of lower-wage workers in Washington state).
Statistics from the Economic Policy Institute shows it is not teens looking for part-time work who would benefit. The people who would benefit are an average 35 years old, 91 percent are not teens, they are 20 or older; 34 percent are 40 or older; 58 percent are women; 28 percent have children; 60 percent work full time. And on average, they earn more than half of their family’s total income.