at took effect in 2007, 2008, and 2009 kept the 50/10 wage gap among women from rising despite higher unemployment.
The last decade has produced no improvement in real wages of a broad range of workers, including those with either a high school or college degree. It has also produced a widening divergence between overall productivity and the wages or compensation of the typical worker. In addition, wage inequality has continued to grow between those at the top and the rest.
The declining value of the minimum wage has played a key role in these trends. Setting the minimum wage at an appropriate level can help spur broad-based wage growth and move us toward an economy where workers benefit from productivity growth. Such policies are needed to reverse those policies that have strengthened the hands of employers and undercut the ability of low- and middle-wage workers to have good jobs and economic security.
If we want the fruits of economic growth to benefit the vast majority, we will have to adopt a different set of guideposts for setting economic policy, as the ones in place over the last several decades have served those with the most income, wealth, and political power. Establishing a higher minimum wage is an important piece of what is needed.
—Lawrence Mishel has been president of the Economic Policy Institute since 2002. Prior to that he was EPI’s first research director (starting in 1987) and later became vice president. He is the co-author of all 12 editions of The State of Working America. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his articles have appeared in a variety of academic and non-academic journals. His areas of research are labor economics, wage and income distribution, industrial relations, productivity growth, and the economics of education.
Autor, David, Alan Manning, and Christopher Smith. 2010. The Contribution of the Minimum Wage to U.S. Wage Inequality Over Three Decades: A Reassessment. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Working Paper. http://economics.mit.edu/files/3279\
Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S. Department of Labor) Current Employment Statistics program. Various years. Employment, Hours and Earnings—National [database]. http://www.bls.gov/ces/#data
Cooper, David. 2012. “A Rising Tide for Increasing Minimum Wage Rates.” Working Economics (Economic Policy Institute blog), April 13. http://www.epi.org/blog/proposals-increasing-minimum-wage/
Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group microdata. Various years. Survey conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics [machine-readable microdata file]. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau. http://www.bls.census.gov/ftp/cps_ftp.html#cpsbasic
Mishel, Lawrence. 2013. Vast Majority of Wage Earners are Working Harder, and for Not Much More: Trends in U.S. Work Hours and Wages over 1979–2007. Economic Policy Institute Issue Brief No. 348. http://www.epi.org/publication/ib348-trends-us-work-hours-wages-1979-2007/
Mishel, Lawrence, Josh Bivens, Elise Gould, and Heidi Shierholz. 2012. The State of Working America, 12th Edition. An Economic Policy Institute book. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Mishel, Lawrence, and Nicholas Finio. 2013. Earnings of the Top 1.0 Percent Rebound Strongly in the Recovery. Economic Policy Institute Issue Brief No. 347. http://www.epi.org/publication/ib347-earnings-top-one-percent-rebound-strongly/
Shierholz, Heidi. 2009. Fix It and Forget It: Index the Minimum Wage to Growth in Average Wages. Economic Policy Institute Briefing Paper No. 251. http://www.epi.org/page/-/pdf/bp251.pdf
U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. 2009. “Federal Minimum Wage Rates Under the Fair Labor Standards Act.” http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.pdf