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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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 the 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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A Missouri ‘right-to-work’ law is more likely to harm black workers, who are more likely to be covered by a union contract than other workers
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Black workers in right-to-work (RTW) states tend to have lower wages than in Missouri and other non-RTW states
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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
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Working harder or finding it harder to work: Demographic trends in annual work hours show an increasingly fractured workforce
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Racial inequalities in wages, income, and wealth show that MLK’s work remains unfinished
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2016 ACS shows stubbornly high Native American poverty and different degrees of economic well-being for Asian ethnic groups
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Little to no gain in median annual earnings in the 2000s, while significant wage gaps remain
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New census data show strong 2016 earnings growth across-the-board, with black and Hispanic workers seeing the fastest growth for second consecutive year
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Repeal of pay transparency rule will make it easier to discriminate against women and people of color
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How today’s unions help working people: Giving workers the power to improve their jobs and unrig the economy
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Black women have to work 7 months into 2017 to be paid the same as white men in 2016
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The black unemployment rate returns to historic low, but not really
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African American women stand out as working moms play a larger economic role in families
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Low-wage African American workers have increased annual work hours most since 1979
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News from EPI › EPI applauds the appointment of Raphael Bostic to lead the Atlanta Fed
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Black workers’ wages have been harmed by both widening racial wage gaps and the widening productivity-pay gap