State of Working X

Similar to the Economic Policy Institute’s State of Working America, the State of Working XX (SWXX) is a series of reports produced by state EARN groups describing the economic conditions for working families in their state. SWXX reports provide a comprehensive description of state economic conditions, often with a focus on labor market conditions. SWXX reports provide data and analysis on job growth, unemployment, wages, incomes, poverty rates, taxes, wealth, immigration, and other issue areas relevant to current state economic conditions and policy discussions. Many SWXX reports also include tailored and timely policy recommendations for strengthening economic conditions for workers in each state.

Publications

Utah Economic Benchmarking Project 2017

The goal of the Working Families Benchmarking Project is to identify economic and related issues affecting Utah families and examine them through a comparative lens, evaluating Utah using a peer state as a benchmark. Many existing economic comparison studies and rankings look at the economy as a whole or at its impact on specific sectors or employers. This project seeks to augment those very useful comparisons by focusing on how the economy is experienced by moderate- and lower-income families. It is these families whose children are most at risk of not achieving their potential in school and later in the workplace. Thus, how they experience the economy is of particular interest to Voices for Utah Children.

The State of Working Connecticut (2017)

Children do well when families do well, and families do well in part when the economy provides jobs with fair wages and good benefits. Yet since the Great Recession, the share of well-paying jobs in Connecticut has shrunk, and the state’s lagging economic recovery has left many—including youth, black workers, and the less educated—behind. In many cases, disparities between the most disadvantaged workers and the rest have increased.

In this report, we evaluate the state’s economy through three measures: labor force, jobs, and wages.

Publication

The State of Working Wisconsin 2017: Facts & Figures

For more than two decades now, annually, on Labor Day, COWS reports on how working people are faring in the state. The State of Working Wisconsin, released biannually on even-numbered years since  1996, is our long-form report, and looks at the economy comprehensively from a working-family perspective. In odd-numbered years, also biannually, we provide a more abbreviated and focused report, called The State of Working Wisconsin 2017: Facts & Figures.

The State of Working Florida 2017

  • August 31, 2017

The 14th edition of State of Working Florida finds that, while Florida’s economic and employment levels have recovered from the Great Recession, levels of economic security have not improved. The report shows that increases in the share of low-wage employment and the persistence of wage disparities for women and people of color after the Great Recession enabled an uneven economic recovery and fueled greater income inequality. In 2015, 26.6 percent of all Floridians were either poor or near poverty. This means that more than a quarter of Floridians earn income that is 150 percent or less than the federal poverty line.