Today, the Democrats unveiled an agenda they’re calling “A Better Deal,” which focuses on providing working people with “better jobs, better wages, and a better future.” The focus on generating robust wage growth and better job quality is very welcomed—it corresponds with EPI’s Raising America’s Pay initiative, which highlights that raising wages for working people is the central economic challenge of our time.
Wage stagnation and economic inequality are not inevitable, nor are they the result of inexorable economic forces that we can’t do anything about—they are a direct result of policy choices made on behalf of those with the most power and wealth. Improving labor standards, such as the minimum wage, investing in infrastructure, and guaranteeing paid family leave and paid sick days will lead to tighter labor markets higher wages, especially for low and moderate-wage workers. We hope this announcement kicks off a general debate on how to lift wages for working people.
EPI has a variety of resources on boosting wages and improving living standards, including:
- A real agenda for working people
- Raising America’s Pay: Why It’s Our Central Economic Policy Challenge
- Lawrence Mishel’s testimony on wages, before the Democratic Platform Committee
- The Opportunity Dodge
- Raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would lift wages for 41 million American workers
- The potential macroeconomic benefits from increasing infrastructure investment
- What does good child care reform look like?
- It’s time for an ambitious national investment in America’s children
- Work sick or lose pay?