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

States with joint-employer shield laws are protecting wealthy corporate franchisers at the expense of franchisees and workers

As of 2018, at least 18 states have enacted joint-employer shield laws specifically designed to protect one very wealthy special interest group: corporate franchisers. Corporate franchisers are the big companies—like McDonalds, or Marriott, or Carl’s Junior—that use the franchise business model, in which oftentimes small-business owners (the franchisees) pay for the rights to use the company’s trademarks, services, and products. These state joint-employer laws are intended to shield the corporate owners of the franchise from bearing joint responsibility with their franchisees for complying with minimum wage, overtime, health and safety, and other laws applicable to the employees who work at the franchisee’s stores. In simple terms, the joint-employer shield laws preclude applying the joint-employer legal doctrine to hold franchisers jointly responsible for violations of employee rights.

Workforce Development in Kentucky Should Encourage High-Road Jobs

Kentucky’s workforce development conversations focus almost exclusively on employers’ needs and perspectives and ask how public dollars can improve perceived deficiencies in the workforce. Such an approach ignores the increasingly difficult conditions employees face in the labor market, and the responsibilities employers should have to provide jobs that meet acceptable community standards.

Media

Wages for American workers are ticking upward, but the US remains one of the world’s most inequitable nations

From PRI:

Last week it was reported that average hourly wages of American workers grew 2.9 percent over the past 12 months. It’s a good sign, but American workers still have a lot of catching up to do and income inequality and wage stagnation remain major concerns…Yes, national wages inched up last year. But consider this statistic from Michelle Webster with the Colorado Center on Law & Policy: “In 2016, median earnings for workers in the state were 2 percent less than what they earned in 2000″ when adjusted for inflation.

Media

Grinch America steps up a tad on workers’ wages

Recent signs suggest worker pay is finally rising after years of stagnation despite an economy that has been steadily chugging along since 2009. The latest jobs report from the Labor Department shows that low unemployment is pushing up wages a bit. Employers added 200,000 jobs in January and private-sector workers, on average, saw their paychecks increase nearly 3 percent, compared to a year earlier.

The change was a long time coming, and no doubt most workers won’t find the modest bump much to crow about. Policy makers and good corporate citizens still have a lot of ground left to recover. For starters, the great bulk of hourly workers averaged only a 2.4 percent gain, as the increases for the salaries of managers contributed to the overall findings.

And our readers might remember that under a December editorial headline “Shame on Grinch America for workers’ stagnant wages,” we bemoaned the findings from the Colorado Center on Law & Policy that Colorado’s median hourly wages were $18.92, which was about 4 percent lower when adjusted for inflation than in 2007, the last year before the horrors of the Great Recession.

The center went on to note that 2016’s median pay was 2 percent lower, after accounting for inflation, than in it had been 2000.

Michelle Webster, the center’s manager of research and policy analysis, tells us the recent gains, while encouraging, have a long way to go to make up for years of lethargy.