Wages

The vast majority of American households’ income comes from what workers receive in their paychecks – which is why wages are so important. Unfortunately, wages for most workers grew exceptionally slowly between 1979 and 2012, despite productivity—which essentially measures the economy’s potential for providing rising living standards for all—rising 64 percent. In other words, most Americans, even those with college degrees, have only been treading water—despite working more productively (and being better educated) than ever.

EARN groups provide key research and policy analysis describing how these trends have played out at the state and local levels, and what policymakers can do about it.

Publications

Publication

CEO Pay Report 2021

A thriving community depends on the work of everyone, from the retail clerk who greets customers to the janitor who cleans the countertop. But for decades, corporate executives held down pay for the typical Ohio worker, while they lavished enormous pay growth on themselves. Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the disparity is as glaring as ever: While Ohioans on the frontlines continue to do vital work months after hazard pay ended — if they ever got it — CEOs in 2020 took home windfall gains from stock price growth. CEOs’ pay reflects their privileged status to set their own pay, and it further separates the fortunes of the wealthiest from the rest of us.

Among 54 of Ohio’s 100 largest employers that reported to the Securities & Exchange Commission, the median chief executive officer was paid 322 times the rate of the median worker at the same company last year. More than two-thirds of the reporting corporations paid their CEO more than 200 times what they paid typical employees. One-third paid their CEO more than 500 times as much, and seven companies paid their CEO more than 1,000 times more than their median employee.

Publication

Excluded Workers Demand Inclusion: $200 Million Investment is Essential Though Less than Half of What’s Needed

In this pivotal moment, DC policymakers must spend federal rescue funds in a timely way, with a laser focus on addressing the racial inequities that have excluded Black and brown communities from economic gains and left them more vulnerable to the COVID-19 crisis. Unfortunately, federal policymakers excluded certain residents—including immigrants who are undocumented and workers in the informal cash economy—from federal relief that provides vital cash assistance to those who have lost income. Intentional investment is needed from DC policymakers to right this unfair exclusion and pursue an equitable and inclusive future for these workers.

Publication

Why A $15 Federal Minimum Wage Will Help Colorado Workers

Highlights

  • Even though Colorado voters have approved a minimum wage in excess of the Federal wage, the current $15 per hour plan to gradually increase the federal minimum wage would increase wages for more than 550,000 Coloradans by 2025. 
  • The proposed federal changes in the wage level restore the purchasing power of the minimum wage to levels not seen since the late 1960s.
  • Workers who earn low incomes tend to spend—rather than save—a high percent of their income. This increase in wages can increase local economic activity.

The State of Working Connecticut: Advancing Economic Justice in the Labor Market

Connecticut Voices for Children released their annual State of Working Connecticut report entitled, “Advancing Economic Justice in the Labor Market.”  This year’s report examines the economic standing of Connecticut’s workers and calls for a sweeping, antiracist program to advance economic justice; additionally, it offers six recommendations to combat rising wage inequality and to address the substantial racial wage gaps in the U.S. and Connecticut.