2016 State of American Wages
In a new report, Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) Elise Gould finds that an improving economy in 2016 brought broad-based wage growth for most workers. Notably, wages at the bottom rose more in states that raised their minimum wages. Despite these improvements, large wage gaps persist by gender and race and between wage levels. Gould recommends that policymakers strengthen labor standards and that the Federal Reserve hold off on raising interest rates until the economy reaches full employment and worker pay rises. Read the report »
1.42M Guestworkers in the U.S.
A new EPI report estimates that 1.42 million temporary foreign workers, or “guestworkers,” were employed in the United States during fiscal year 2013—roughly equivalent to 1 percent of the total U.S. labor force. Authors Daniel Costa of EPI and Jennifer Rosenbaum, a visiting Human Rights Fellow at Yale Law School, encourage the U.S. government to collect better data on temporary foreign workers and their employers to help policymakers to make more informed decisions about foreign worker visa programs. Read the report »
Women have a huge impact in the economy — but it could be even bigger
A new article by EPI’s Elise Gould finds that policies like paid parental leave and subsidized child care would increase parental labor force participation and boost the economy. Gould finds that if prime-age women (age 25–54) in the United States participated in the workforce at the same average rate as women in Canada and Germany (78.4 percent), the U.S. GDP would increase by $600 billion. Read the article »