Biography
Valerie Rawlston Wilson is director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy (PREE), a nationally recognized source for expert reports and policy analyses on the economic condition of America’s people of color. Prior to joining EPI, Wilson was an economist and vice president of research at the National Urban League Washington Bureau, where she was responsible for planning and directing the bureau’s research agenda. She has written extensively on various issues impacting economic inequality in the United States—including employment and training, income and wealth disparities, access to higher education, and social insurance—and has also appeared in print, television, and radio media. In 2010, through the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs, she was selected to deliver the keynote address at an event on Minority Economic Empowerment at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway. In 2011, Wilson served on a National Academies Panel on Measuring and Collecting Pay Information from U.S. Employers by Gender, Race, and National Origin.
Education
Ph.D., Economics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Racial disparities in income and poverty remain largely unchanged amid strong income growth in 2019
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Latinx workers—particularly women—face devastating job losses in the COVID-19 recession
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Black women workers are essential during the crisis and for the recovery but still are greatly underpaid
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Inequities exposed: How COVID-19 widened racial inequities in education, health, and the workforce: Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor
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Black workers face two of the most lethal preexisting conditions for coronavirus—racism and economic inequality
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Exposed and underpaid: Women still make less than men, including in sectors especially affected by the coronavirus
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AAPI women face a double pay penalty for race and gender
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What to Watch on Jobs Day: Anticipated distortions to payroll employment and wage growth
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Racial and ethnic income gaps persist amid uneven growth in household incomes
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News from EPI › Income growth slows significantly again in 2018
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What to watch for in the 2018 Census data on earnings, incomes, and poverty
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Wage growth is weak for a tight labor market—and the pace of wage growth is uneven across race and gender
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Black workers endure persistent racial disparities in employment outcomes
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What to Watch on Jobs Day: Data volatility or signs of an economic slowdown?
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Black unemployment is at least twice as high as white unemployment at the national level and in 14 states and the District of Columbia
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The Raise the Wage Act of 2019 would give black workers a much-needed boost in pay
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Before the State of the Union, a fact check on black unemployment
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Digging into the 2017 ACS: Improved income growth for Native Americans, but lots of variation in the pace of recovery for different Asian ethnic groups
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10 years after the start of the Great Recession, black and Asian households have yet to recover lost income
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What to watch for in the 2017 Census data on earnings, incomes, and poverty
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Separate is still unequal: How patterns of occupational segregation impact pay for black women
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News from EPI › Job growth slows in the dog days of summer
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The rise in child poverty reveals racial inequality, more than a failed War on Poverty
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Countries investing more in social programs have less child poverty
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Valerie Wilson on the Economic Inequality Gap for African Americans
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Environmental Racism
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50 years after the riots: Continued economic inequality for African Americans
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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