Areas of expertise
Economic inequality • Economic mobility • Minimum wage • Unemployment • Unions • Work–life balance • Discrimination • International labor market comparisons
Biography
John Schmitt became EPI’s vice president on January 1, 2018, returning to where he started his career as an economist from 1995 to 2001. Following his earlier tenure at EPI, he spent 10 years as a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) and, most recently, was the research director at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Over the last two decades, he has also worked as a consultant to the International Labor Organization (ILO), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the European Commission, the Solidarity Center, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and other national and international organizations.
Schmitt has published peer-reviewed research on unemployment, wage inequality, the minimum wage, unionization, immigration, technology, racial inequality, mass incarceration, and other topics. His popular writing has appeared in The American Prospect, Boston Review, BusinessWeek.com, Challenge, Democracy, Dissent, The Guardian, The International Herald Tribune, Salon, The Washington Post, and other publications. His research has been cited widely in the media including The Economist, Harper’s Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Schmitt has also given talks on economic and policy issues to government, academic, union, and general audiences throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
At EPI, Schmitt was the co-author of three editions of The State of Working America. He was also a co-editor of Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World (Russell Sage Foundation, 2010). From 1999 through 2015, he was a visiting professor in public policy at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.
Before joining EPI in 1995, Schmitt was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador, and then spent a year working as an information officer for the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL).
Education
Ph.D. and M.Sc. in economics, London School of Economics
A.B. in Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
By Content:
By Area of Research:
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Decades of slow wage growth for telecommunications workers
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Raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 will restore bargaining power to workers during the recovery from the pandemic
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The Senate’s failure to act on federal aid to state and local governments jeopardizes veterans’ jobs
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EPI comments re the joint-employer standard
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America’s slow-motion wage crisis: Four decades of slow and unequal growth
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50 years after the Kerner Commission: African Americans are better off in many ways but are still disadvantaged by racial inequality
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The “high road” Seattle labor market and the effects of the minimum wage increase: Data limitations and methodological problems bias new analysis of Seattle’s minimum wage increase
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We Can Afford a $12.00 Federal Minimum Wage in 2020
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Wage Inequality: A Story of Policy Choices
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Don’t Blame the Robots: Assessing the Job Polarization Explanation of Growing Wage Inequality
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Job polarization in the 2000s?
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Assessing the job polarization explanation of growing wage inequality
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Did international trade lower less-skilled wages during the 1980s? Standard trade theory and evidence
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Economic ‘Boom’ of the 1990s is a Bust for the Middle Class
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Demand drives U.S. jobs success
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The State of Working America 2000-01
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The state of self-employment
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The myth of economic mobility
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The impact of the minimum wage
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The Macroeconomic Roots of High European Unemployment
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The minimum wage increase: A working woman’s issue
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The Minimum Wage Increase: A Working Woman’s Issue
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TAX CUT NO CURE FOR MIDDLE CLASS ECONOMIC WOES
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The State of Working America 1998-99
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Finally, Real Wage Gains: Lower Unemployment, Higher Minimum Wage Spur Recent Wage Growth
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Making Work Pay: The Impact of the 1996-97 Minimum Wage Increase