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From the point of view of an economist at a think tank that examines the trends and policies of working people in the U.S., the reasons are simple: “Wealth is in their housing and what they get paid,” explained Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute.
“They don’t have a lot of dividends,” he continued. “Their wealth is … not in financial assets.”
National Journal September 4, 2012 -
The decline of union membership has been a key driver of income inequality in recent decades, a new report found.
The drop in unionization accounts for roughly a third of the growth in wage inequality among men and a fifth among women between 1973 and 2007, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
The share of the workforce represented by unions declined from 26.7% in 1973 to 13.1% in 2011. This contributed to the increase in inequality by lowering wages for middle class workers, according to EPI.
CNNMoney August 31, 2012 -
Declining unionization is responsible for about one-third of the growth of wage inequality among men from 1973 to 2007, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. The wage gap between white- and blue-collar workers grew some 10 percentage points from 1978 to 2011, while the gap between college and high school graduates increased 24 percentage points.
Nationally, the share of the work force represented by unions declined from 26.7 percent in 1973 to 13.1 percent in 2011.
“Unions reduce wage inequalities because they raise wages more at the bottom and in the middle of the wage scale than at the top,” Lawrence Mishel, president of the institute, said in a statement. “It is unsurprising that efforts to weaken unions have exacerbated both wage inequality and the divergence between overall productivity and the compensation of the typical worker.”
Maryland Gazette August 31, 2012 -
Real wages have stagnated over the last decade partly because of dwindling collective bargaining power, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the Economic Policy Institute.
In his research for the institute’s “State of Working America” report, which will be published Sept. 11, Lawrence Mishel said “deunionization” also can explain some of the growing wage gap between the nation’s highest paid workers and everyone else.
About 13.1 percent of the U.S. workforce was represented by unions last year. The share has decreased steadily since the late 1970s.
“The decline of unions has affected middle-wage men more than any other group and explains about three-fourths of the expanded wage gap between white- and blue-collar men and over a fifth of the expanded wage gap between high school and college-educated men from 1978 to 2011,” Mishel wrote.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/29/3785314/decline-in-unions-weakened-overall.html#storylink=cpyKansas City Star August 31, 2012 -
Nearly one-third of the increase in wage inequality among men over the last four decades is attributable to the declining unionization of the American workforce, a new study from the Economic Policy Institute found. Declining unionization is responsible for roughly one-fifth of the growth in wage inequality among women over the same time period (from 1973 to 2007), according to the report. In 1973, 26.7 percent of American workers were in a union; by 2011, that number had fallen to 13.1 percent. The study also found that declining unionization was responsible for 76 percent of the increase in wage inequality between white- and blue-collar workers.
Think Progress August 31, 2012 -
Imports to the U.S. from China have risen dramatically in the past 10 years. According to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute, that increase contributed heavily to job losses in Wisconsin, but the trend may be slowing.
Between 2001 and 2010, Wisconsin lost more than 54,000 manufacturing jobs to China. Rob Scott is the Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Research for the labor-friendly Economic Policy Institute. He blames a growing trade deficit with China for many of the manufacturing industry’s economic woes.
Wisconsin Public Radio August 29, 2012 -
Men and women who have completed college face a dilemma, according to Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute. Yes, they’re faring better in the current economy than others. But they still might lag behind another key comparison point: themselves.
According to Mishel’s data, college graduates have lost income during the past decade. From 2000 to 2011, for instance, median weekly earnings fell by 1.2 percent among people who earned a college degree. From 2007 to 2011 alone, it dropped 1.1 percent. “I don’t think they’re necessarily rebounding any better, from what I see,” he said. “What’s happened over the last 10 years—wages for college graduates and those with high-school degrees—neither groups has seen any improvement in their wages and benefits.”
National Journal August 28, 2012 -
Social Security remains most boomers’ hope for retirement income. On average, U.S. workers are beginning to take their Social Security benefits at age 63.8. That average fell by more than five years between 1945 and 1970. After that, though, the average has stayed fairly stable, noted Monique Morrissey, an economist who wrote “The Myth of Early Retirement” last year.
But Morrissey cautions against measuring “retirement” by Social Security take-up rates alone. Forty-five percent of eligible Social Security households continue to earn money from a job or jobs.
It’s a fact of life, though, that about one in three people becomes disabled before retirement.
McClatchy August 28, 2012 -
The economy now is “a little bit better,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “But if you lost your job, there just wasn’t that much available.”
The Washington Post August 27, 2012 -
The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning economic think tank in Washington, D.C., estimates that America. lost 2.7 million jobs as a result of the U.S.-China trade deficit between 2001 and 2011, 2.1 million of them in manufacturing. Wages of American workers have also suffered due to the competition with cheap Chinese labor, EPI says. A typical two-earner household loses around $2,500 per year from this dynamic.
“They have been managing their economy on the back of ours for more than a decade,” says Robert Scott, director of trade and manufacturing policy research at EPI and the author of the report. China imports materials from the U.S., he says, to make cheap exports that it then sells back to U.S. consumers.
US News and World Report August 27, 2012