Female union members saw significantly narrower gender wage disparities than their nonunionized counterparts, the Economic Policy Institute found in a study released Monday. Overall, the Washington think tank said, unionized women earned 94 percent of what unionized white men earned, compared to nonunionized women, who earned 78 percent of what nonunionized men did. Black female union members exhibited no pay gap with unionized black men while African-American women who were not union members made 88 percent of what nonunionized black men earned. Among Hispanic workers, unionized women earned 88 percent of what unionized men made while nonunionized women made 84 percent of what nonunionized Hispanic men did.
International Business Times
April 5, 2017
The Economic Policy Institute says that last year, women earned 22 percent less than men; what’s more, it gets worse for black woman, who make 63 percent of what white men make, and Latina women, who make 54 percent, according to the National Women’s Law Center. There’s more bad news for women as they age, too, as research shared by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) has found that the gender pay gap widens after around the age of 35.
Bustle
April 5, 2017
Trump complains that U.S. companies’ eager migration of manufacturing to cheap-labor Chinese factories — where wages average about 80% less than in the U.S. — has cost too many American jobs. Trade skeptics say the numbers back him up. The U.S. has lost 3.4 million jobs between 2001 and 2015 due to the trade deficit with China, and about three-fourths were in manufacturing, according to Robert Scott, an economist at the liberal think tank Economic Policy Institute. Incomes of workers directly impacted fell by $37 billion a year between 2001 and 2011, Scott said.
USA Today
April 5, 2017
Unfortunately, a 2016 study by the Economic Policy Institute reports that the racial wage gap, for both men and women, is actually widening in the United States. As a result, women of color predictably suffered greater consequences than men in the same position. “The widening gap has not affected everyone equally,” reads the report. “Young black women (those with 0 to 10 years of experience) have been hardest hit since 2000.”
Bustle
April 5, 2017
The key to economic wellbeing, we are told, is hard work. Economic success comes to those who strive for it and take advantage of every opportunity that comes before them. Every job, even those that pay the least, is one step upward. Last week, we were reminded just how wrong this perspective can be, especially for African Americans. According to Valerie Wilson and Janelle Jones, writing for the Economic Policy Institute, low-wage workers, especially those of color, have been working longer and harder but seeing very little benefit for the effort. Though working hours have gone up, the economic divide between rich and poor has grown wider.
Nonprofit Quarterly
April 5, 2017
According to the Economic Policy Institute’s 2016 analysis of federal labor statistics, the median wage for U.S. women is about 16.8 percent less than the median for men — with women making about 83 cents to a man’s dollar. According to economist Elise Gould, that’s a gap that only increases as women become more educated and climb the corporate ladder. “At the bottom, there’s just so far down women’s wages can go. They are protected by some degree by the minimum wage,” said Gould. “But as you move up, women are not occupying places at the top the way men are. The wage gap at the top is much larger.”
April 4, 2017
Higher-paid women suffer bigger gender wage gaps. Women who work in highly paid fields such as finance and medicine feel the most economic pain from the pay gap, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. Women at the top end of the wage-distribution spectrum earn just 74 cents for every $1 men earn, they found. Why is that? High-achieving women may be hit with the “motherhood penalty.” The EPI noted that women’s pay lags that of men with similar education and experience after they have children, even though men see no corresponding fatherhood penalty. Time-intensive workplaces such as law firms and investment banks may be more likely to ding women on that front.
CBS Moneywatch
April 4, 2017
Equal Pay Day is a symbolic day marking how far into a year women would have to work in order to earn the same amount men earned the year before. According to the Economic Policy Institute, in 2016 women were paid on average about 22% less than men. (The institute obtained this figure after controlling “for race and ethnicity, education, experience, and location.”)
Refinery29
April 4, 2017
A separate study by the Economic Policy Institute, which supports workers’ interests, pegged the current gender gap at 22 percent, after controlling for race, ethnicity, education, experience and location. Part of the wage gap is because occupations dominated by women tend to be lower paying than jobs traditionally dominated by men. But EPI researchers Elise Gould and Teresa Kroeger said that, on average, women are paid less than their male colleagues in almost every occupation, regardless of whether it’s a male- or female-dominated industry. The EPI analysis looked at Current Population Survey data from 2011 through 2016 and found that advanced education doesn’t necessarily help women close the wage gap. Men with a four-year degree earned an average of $37.13 an hour. Women with advanced degrees — beyond four-year degrees — earned an average of $34.95.
Kansas City Star
April 4, 2017
Women earned 22% less money than men last year, according to the Economic Policy Institute, even when factors like education and experience were controlled for. Factor in race, and it’s even more appalling: Black women make 63% of what white men do, and Latina women make 54%, according to the National Women’s Law Center.
Refinery29
April 4, 2017