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

A higher minimum wage would help Alabama families make ends meet and strengthen our state’s economy

Too many hard-working Alabamians aren’t paid enough to get ahead. Alabama ranks in the bottom third of states for average hourly wages. Around 77,000 Alabamians earn wages at or below the $7.25 per hour minimum established by the federal government in 2009, and another 394,000 earn less than $10 an hour. In the absence of a state minimum wage, Birmingham in 2015 set its own minimum wage of $10.10 per hour, for implementation by mid-2017. However, the Alabama Legislature overruled, or pre-empted, that measure in 2016 with a state law that prohibits local governments from mandating a minimum wage and other employment practices. (

Publication

Oregon Care Economy: The Case for Public Care Investment

Oregon’s current care economy is vast and largely invisible. Currently underinvested, it creates and exacerbates poverty and inequality. We are missing the opportunity to invest adequately in the care economy in order to build a stronger, more inclusive economy and better life for us all. This report seeks to bring care work into view.

Raising the State Minimum Wage

Raising the minimum wage is an effective strategy for reducing poverty in New Mexico, particularly given the erosion of its purchasing power since it was last raised in 2009. In the legislative session that begins in January 2017, New Mexico lawmakers should enact legislation to raise the minimum wage to $12.50 per hour by 2021, if not sooner. This would establish a minimum wage that is roughly 60 percent of the state’s median wage. While this level for the minimum wage could not be considered a living wage, thousands of families would benefit—as would the state’s economy as that money was spent at local businesses.

In recent years the cities of Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Las Cruces have acted to raise the minimum wage in their communities above that of the state. If the state raised the state’s minimum wage to $12.50 an hour by 2021 in the upcoming state legislative session, it would be the first minimum wage increase for the whole state since the present minimum wage of $7.50 took effect in January of 2009. This report assumes an increase in five $1.00 increments, from $7.50 to $8.50 an hour in 2017 and to $9.50 an hour in 2018 and so forth, up to $12.50 an hour by 2021. In 2017, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), there will be about 795,000 workers statewide making an hourly wage in New Mexico, rising to 825,000 in 2021. The EPI estimates that in 2021, 225,500 (or 27 percent) of those 825,000 workers would be directly helped by raising the minimum to $12.50 an hour. An additional 22,900 workers would be indirectly affected—their wages would rise due to ‘spillover effects’ from raising the wage to $12.50. The total number of workers affected would be 248,400 or about 30 percent of the 825,000 hourly workers. This report describes the characteristics of these low-wage workers and looks at the EPI’s estimates of the wage impacts of raising the state’s minimum wage.