Browse a collection of EPI material dealing with the intersection of skills, technology, and wage inequality in the U.S. economy.

Seven Reasons for Skepticism about the Technology Story of U.S. Wage Inequality
Jared Bernstein and Lawrence Mishel
From Sourcebook of Labor Markets: Evolving Structures and Processes, edited by Ivar Berg and Arne L. Kalleberg.
Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, New York, 2001.

Technology and the Wage Structure: Has Technology’s Impact Accelerated Since the 1970s?
Lawrence Mishel and Jared Bernstein
from Research in Labor Economics, Volume 17, pages 305-355.
JAI Press Inc., 1998.

Did Technology Have Any Effect on the Growth of Wage Inequality in the 1980s and 1990s?
Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and John Schmitt
Preliminary Draft (Working Paper), April, 1997 (revised December, 1997)
Economic Policy Institute, 1997.

Excerpts from The State of Working America 1996-1997
Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and John Schmitt
(pp. 160-167, 214-227)
M.E. Sharpe (Economic Policy Institute Series), 1997.

Lessons for Post-Katrina reconstruction
The need to rebuild the Gulf Coast quickly is no excuse for suspending the Davis-Bacon Act or affirmative action requirements, as President Bush has done. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s destruction of the Gulf Coast, politicians need to learn from the resoundingly successful post-earthquake reconstruction of the Southern California freeways in 1994. One important contribution to the speed and efficiency of that effort was the enforcement of the Davis-Bacon Act. The new EPI Briefing Paper Lessons for Post-Katrina Reconstruction explains how the prevailing wage law can help ensure that work is done expeditiously, safely, cost effectively, and with maximum benefit to the local population

Principles and Priorities for Rebuilding New Orleans
An EPI-coordinated statement, made by a number of Black policymakers and social scientists, lays out guidelines on how to rebuild the Gulf in ways that are beneficial and inclusive to residents and mindful of the poverty and lost jobs that plague the area.

Katrina knocks payrolls off course
While the impact of Hurricane Katrina on U.S payrolls was less than predicted for September, EPI’s Jobs Picture for October 7 takes a closer look at the data and reveals a significant swing in payroll numbers in the last month.

Policies to guide the post-Katrina rebuilding process
The crisis of Katrina presents our government with a unique opportunity to simultaneously address the destruction done by the storm and the already existing needs of the citizens of the affected areas, many of whom are dispersed throughout the region and the country. In the coming months and years, substantial federal resources will be committed to cleaning up and rebuilding Gulf Coast infrastructure and communities. The guidelines outlined in this EPI Policy Memo are intended to help structure the rebuilding process in a way that takes advantage of this opportunity to improve people’s lives. The recommendations cover policies for local hiring, prevailing wages, health care, training, and ensuring a voice in the process for residents of the affected areas. They mustn’t be left behind again.

Gulf families’ recovery at risk
On September 8, President Bush suspended indefinitely the Davis-Bacon Act, the law that requires federal contractors to pay prevailing wages in the local area. With some of the region’s construction industry wages already near or below the poverty line, this puts even more families at risk of earning wages below the poverty threshold. Read about it in this Economic Snapshot.

EPI work on Social Security

[Jump to State Social Security work]

EPI’s Issue Guide on Social Security, revised in May 2005, includes an introduction to Social Security, frequently asked questions about Social Security privatization, links to other organizations’ research and more. The entire guide is also available for download as a single Acrobat PDF file.

Social Security provides the primary life insurance protection for most children
By David Ratner and Lee Price, October 2005 (Economic Snapshot)

Shifting risk: Workers today near retirement more vulnerable and with lower pensions
By Lee Price, July 2005 (Issue Brief)

Two Steps Back: African Americans and Latinos will lose ground under Social Security “reform”
By Ross Eisenbrey and William Spriggs, July 2005 (Issue Brief)

Looking in the wrong places: Why benefit cuts will not solve Social Security’s financing problem
By William Spriggs and David Ratner, July 2005 (Economic Snapshot)

Social Security’s cruelest cut: Bush’s proposal slashes benefits for family members of workers who die before retirement
By William Spriggs and David Ratner, July 2005 (Issue Brief)

The DeMint plan to raid the Social Security trust fund
By Lee Price and David Ratner, July 2005 (Economic Snapshot)

Economic conditions affecting Social Security and the merits of pre-funding
By Lee Price, June 2005 (Congressional testimony, EPI Viewpoint)

Many already lack a steady job before the Social Security retirement age
By Elise Gould, June 2005 (Economic Snapshot)

Social Security price indexing proposal means benefit cuts for workers
By William E. Spriggs and David Ratner, June 2005 (Issue Brief)

Lifting cap on Social Security taxes would rescue retirement program
By Lawrence Mishel, May 2005 (EPI Viewpoint)

Growth in Social Security wealth outpaces all other sources
By Amy Chasanov, May 2005 (Economic Snapshot)

Retirement Income: The Crucial Role of Social Security
By Christian Weller and Edward N. Wolff, May 2005 (EPI Book)

Productivity growth and Social Security’s future
By William E. Spriggs and Lee Price, May 2005 (Issue Brief)

Social Security: Why put a critical middle-class program at risk?
By Lee Price, May 2005 (EPI Viewpoint)

President’s proposal for deep cuts in middle-income Social Security benefits
By Amy Chasanov and Lee Price, May 2005 (Economic Snapshot)

Lessons from the Social Security debate
By Jared Bernstein and Mark Greenberg, April 2005 (EPI Viewpoint)

Social Security’s fixable financing issues: Shortfall in funds is not inevitable
By L. Josh Bivens, April 2005 (Issue Brief)

Coming soon to your mailbox: Government misinformation
By Amy Chasanov, March 2005 (EPI Viewpoint)

Social Security Income and the Elderly
By Michael Ettlinger and Jeff Chapman, March 2005 (Issue Brief)

Big deficit, little deficit: The Bush budget and Social Security
By Max B. Sawicky, March 2005 (Economic Snapshot)

Collision course: The Bush budget and Social Security
By Max B. Sawicky, March 2005 (Briefing Paper)

Implications of the Bush budget for people over 55
By Lee Price, March 2005 (Economic Snapshot)

Top earners get Social Security windfall, others get the bill
By William E. Spriggs, March 2005 (Economic Snapshot)

Bush plays down SSA benefits to widows, disabled
By William E. Spriggs, March 2005 (EPI Viewpoint)

Walkmans to iPods: Social Security is better equipped to provide family income protection
By William E. Spriggs, February 2005 (Economic Snapshot)

Removing earnings cap could fix Social Security shortfall
By L. Josh Bivens, February 2005 (Economic Snapshot)

Proposed Social Security price indexing would slash benefits
By Amy Chasanov, February 2005 (Economic Snapshot)

Social Security privatization’s motherhood penalty
By William Spriggs, February 2005 (Economic Snapshot)

Privatization fix for Social Security is worse than doing nothing
By Josh Bivens, January 2005 (Economic Snapshot)

Proposal by the president’s Social Security commission whittles away at income support
By Lee Price, January 2005 (Economic Snapshot)

Private accounts: The ‘spicy sauce’ to sell deep benefit cuts
By Lee Price, December 2004 (Economic Snapshot)

Social Security and income
By Josh Bivens, November 2004 (Economic Snapshot)

Related EPI Publications

Shifting risk: Workers today near retirement more vulnerable and with lower pensions
By Lee Price, July 2005 (Issue Brief #213)

Retirement Income: The Crucial Role of Social Security
By Christian Weller and Edward N. Wolff, May 2005 (EPI book)

Health Insurance Coverage in Retirement: The Erosion of Retirement Income Security
By Christian Weller, Jeff Wenger, and Elise Gould, June 2004 (EPI book)

Retirement Made Riskier: House Pension Bill, Treasury Proposal ignore the real problems
By Sarah Harding and Christian Weller, April 2003 (Issue Brief #189)

Retirement Out Of Reach
by Christian Weller, August 2002
(Briefing Paper #129)

Retirement Insecurity: The Income Shortfalls Awaiting the Soon-to-Retire
by Edward N. Wolff, 2002 (EPI Book)

Shortchanging the next generation: Proposed Social Security cut would index benefits to 2006 living standards level, eroding retirement income for everyone thereafter
by Christian Weller, September 2001 (Issue Brief #162)

You’re in good hands with Social Security: But privatization proposals would unravel its ability to insure against loss of income, disability, and death
by Christian Weller, July 2001 (Issue Brief #161)

The commission’s straw man: Social Security well prepared for retirement of baby boomers in 2016
by Christian Weller, July 2001 (Issue Brief #159)

What the crash means for your retirement
by Christian Weller, May 2001 (Issue Brief #156)

Trust fund’s rainy day postponed, again
by Edith Rasell and Christian E. Weller, March 2001 (Issue Brief #152)

The Problems With Privatization
Economic Policy Institute, December 2000 (Social Security Policy Brief)

Social Security and Women
Economic Policy Institute, December 2000 (Social Security Policy Brief)

Social Security: Options for Reform
Economic Policy Institute, December 2000 (Social Security Policy Brief)

Raising the Retirement Age: The wrong direction for Social Security
by Christian Weller, September 2000 (Briefing Paper #98)

The Perils of Privatization: Bush’s lethal plan for Social Security
by Edith Rasell and Christian Weller, May 2000 (Issue Brief #145)

Getting better all the time: Social Security’s ever-improving future
by Christian Weller and Edith Rasell, March 2000 (Issue Brief #140)

Fixing Social Security: The Clinton plan and its alternatives
by Edith Rasell and Jeff Faux, April 1999 (Briefing Paper #82)

Social Security Isn’t Broken: So why does Wall Street want to fix it?
EPI Paycheck Economics 1998

The Feldstein-Samwick ‘Two Percent Solution’: New Social Security Proposal Is Both Inadequate and Risky
by Edith Rasell, November 1998 (Issue Brief #128)

Saving Social Security in Three Steps
by Dean Baker, 1998 (Briefing Paper #79)

Defusing the Baby Boomer Time Bomb: Projections of Income in the 21st Century
by Dean Baker, 1998 (study)

America’s Golden Years Ensuring Prosperity in an Aging Society
by Edith Rasell, Max Sawicky, and Dean Baker, 1998 (Issue Brief #125)

The Distributional Effects of Raising the Social Security Retirement Age and Partially Indexing Benefits
by Edward Wolff and Howard Chernick, 1996 (Working Paper #115)

Privatizing Social Security: The Wall Street Fix
by Dean Baker, 1996 (Issue Brief #112)

Robbing the Cradle? A Critical Assessment of Generational Accounting
by Dean Baker, 1995 (study)

State Social Security work

Social Security and the income of the elderly
By Michael Ettlinger and Jeff Chapman, March 2005 (Issue Brief #206)

Social Security facts by state and congressional district (April 2005)

[ Jump to view recent work ]

When the Department of Labor issued its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking at the end of March 2003, EPI tried to understand how it could conclude that only 644,000 employees would lose their right to overtime pay. The proposal makes radical changes in the law, but the DOL regulatory analysis does not reflect them. So EPI analyzed the changes ourselves, with the help of a team of experts. EPI’s analysis determined that if this proposal became law, more than 8 million workers would lose overtime protection.

A subsequent analysis by EPI also concluded that the Department of Labor’s claim that 1.3 million low income workers would stand to gain overtime pay from their proposal is untrue. In fact, the number of low-income workers who would benefit from DOL’s proposal is certainly less than 737,000, and probably much smaller.

Comments filed by employer organizations support EPI’s conclusion that the proposal will lead to employers disqualifying workers from earning overtime pay. For example, Hewitt Associates, a leading human resources consultant, wrote in a memo to clients: “In any event, these proposed changes likely will open the door for employers to reclassify a large number of previously nonexempt employees as exempt. The resulting effect on compensation and morale could be detrimental, as employees previously accustomed to earning, in some cases, significant amounts of overtime pay would suddenly lose that opportunity.”

On September 9, 2003, the Senate voted to block any of the provisions in the new rules that would deny workers overtime pay. The House, on October 1, reversed a previous vote and voted to instruct negotiators, when they meet with the Senate to reconcile differences over the Labor Department’s appropriations, to support the Senate’s language to block the new proposal from stripping workers of their overtime rights.

The Administration however, threatened to veto any bill that included the Harkin amendment. Under the threat of a veto, on January 22, 2004, the Harkin amendment was stripped from the appropriations bill and the massive federal spending bill was passed. The Department of Labor announced that it expects to issue the final rules by the end of March. Efforts to block the government’s plan to deny workers their overtime rights continue.

Recent EPI work on overtime issues:

Final overtime rules strip protection from millions of workers
On April 23, the Department of Labor published regulatory changes that, if they are allowed to take effect, could strip away the right to overtime pay for over six million workers. The original version of these rules, proposed by the Bush Administration in March 2003, would have stripped overtime protection from eight million workers. The result was widespread public opposition, and the administration promised that its final version of the rules would correct this problem, a promise it has failed to keep. For an analysis of the final overtime rule changes, read EPI’s Briefing Paper, Longer Hours, Less Pay.

Visit  Viewpoints to read EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey’s May 20 congressional  testimony on the Department of Labor’s final overtime regulations.

Read EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey’s written testimony delivered on May 4, 2004 before the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations,  On the Department of Labor’s Final Overtime Regulations: Preliminary Analysis of DOL’s Final Rule on Overtime Exemptions.

Read the January 20, 2004 testimony on the Department of Labor’s proposed rule on overtime pay presented by EPI senior economist Jared Bernstein before the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education of the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations.

Read The Truth Behind the Administration’s Numbers on Overtime Pay, an explanation of the vast difference between Department of Labor and EPI estimates of the number of workers that would be affected by DOL’s proposed overtime regulation.

DOL Overtime Rule Won’t Guarantee Overtime Pay for 1.3 million Low-Income Workers

Read the December 11, 2003 testimony on the Department of Labor’s proposed overtime regulation presented by EPI vice president Ross Eisenbrey before the U.S. Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

Read the EPI Briefing Paper,

Eliminating the right to overtime pay. Read a summary of the paper’s findings in the News Release.

Millions Stand to Lose Overtime Pay Under Bush Plan .

Top Employer Groups Name Specific Occupations And Activities To Be Ineligible For Overtime Under New Regulations

Read the July 31, 2003 testimony of EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey before the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Read the December 5, 2003 op-ed about Bush administration’s changes to the rules governing overtime pay.

The Department of Labor’s Claims about the Overtime Rule: A Rebuttal

Read EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey’s October 29 letter of explanation to House Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, regarding inquiries about the Department of Labor’s proposed revisions to overtime regulations.

Occupations In Danger Of Losing Right To Overtime Pay If Proposed DOL Rule Changes Are Passed

U.S. Employer Groups Hail Proposed DOL Overtime Regulations

Read the February 14, 2003 op-ed, Just What the Worker Needs — Longer Days, No Overtime.

Read the August 31, 2003 op-ed, Sad Labor Day for Working Americans

Economic Policy Institute’s Recommendations to Clarify U.S. Department of Labor’s Overtime Rules

The Economic Policy Institute has released several new studies devoted to important issues facing the U.S. economy and the living standards of its workers. The State of Working America, The Benefits of Full Employment, and Retirement Insecurity can be purchased online or over the telephone at (202) 331-5510 or 1-800-374-4844

 The State of Working
America 2002-03

by L. Mishel, J. Bernstein, and H. Boushey

The Benefits of Full Employment

by Jared Bernstein & Dean Baker

Retirement Insecurity

The Income Shortfalls Awaiting the Soon-to-Retire
by Edward Wolff             Paper: ISBN 0-8014-8803-6
$24.95 January 2003

Cloth: ISBN 0-8014-4064-5
$59.95 January 2003

Order a copy of The State of Working America 2002-2003
Read an excerpt
Read the news release

Paper: ISBN 1-932066-04-7
$11.95 March 2003

Order a copy of The Benefits of Full Employment
Read an excerpt
Read the news release

Paper: ISBN 1-932066-01-2
$10.95May 2002

Order a copy of Retirement Insecurity
Read an excerpt
Read the news releases

Get free shipping on your entire order when you order these publications online!

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