The Minimum Wage: Time to Start Working on the Next Increase
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This is a cross-post from Jared Bernstein’s blog, On the Economy. Bernstein is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) and, from 2009 to 2011, was the chief economist and economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.
I’ve always thought the national minimum wage is a lot more important than most people tend to think. By definition, it sets a floor on the low end of the job market, though to their credit, many states now set their minimums above the federal level of $7.25 (Washington State clocks in at a cool $9.04). So it’s a floor, not a ceiling.
Lots of low-wage workers and their families depend on it, and its long slide, as shown in the accompanying chart, especially over the Reagan years, contributed to wage losses and working poverty for many who toil to this day in low-end services.
Of course, when someone raises the idea of a raise, you hear a huge outcry from some in the business lobby. Their generic argument is that the increase will lead to job losses among those low-wage workers affected by the higher wage level. Such workers, they say, will now be “priced out of the labor market.”
Yet, you hear the opposite from groups that represent low-wage workers’ interests, groups like the National Employment Law Project, or NELP (proud disclosure: I’m on their board). Read the rest of this entry »
Paid Family Leave Good for Business and the Economy
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When workers have paid family leave, especially after childbirth, they’re more likely to stay in the workforce and significantly less likely to require public assistance, according to a new report from the National Partnership for Women & Families. In fact, they’re even more likely to receive salary increases.
That’s good for everybody, the authors say, including both taxpayers and businesses, which reap a more stable workforce when paid family leave is offered.
Today, nearly three-fourths of children live in homes where the adults who care for them work outside the home. Workers in jobs that have paid holidays and vacation time often cobble together those benefits in order to take care of a newborn or other family members. But low-wage workers whose employers don’t offer any paid leave, say the study’s authors, are at risk for falling out of the workforce and onto public assistance rolls when family members require their care.
The study, ”Pay Matters: The Positive Economic Impacts of Paid Family Leave for Families, Businesses and the Public,” conducted by the Center for Women and Work (CWW) at Rutgers University, reports that: Read the rest of this entry »
Two Years After Quake, Haitians Have Few Jobs or a Living Wage
Elizabeth Boomer of the AFL-CIO International Affairs Department sends us this report in conjunction with the Solidarity Center.
Two years after a massive earthquake destroyed much of Haiti’s capital and surrounding towns, the Haitian people are still struggling to recover from the disaster and the entrenched poverty that it has exacerbated.
The solution, say Haitian workers, is a Haitian-driven reconstruction effort that focuses on sustainable, equitable development aimed at improving the lives of all citizens—not just a few.
Women Will Wait Until 2056 to See Pay Equity, Unless We Act Now
Emmelle Israel, AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow, sends us this.
At the current rate, pay equity between men and women won’t occur for another 45 years, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR).
Add in the past 48 years since the Equal Pay Act was first signed into law and you have an almost 100-year long struggle for basic wage parity—even longer if you reach back into history and take into account all the women who stood up for themselves when they noticed their male counterparts were paid more for similar work.
The enduring wage disparity between female and male workers prompted a series of forums on Capitol Hill regarding the gender wage gap, sponsored by Women’s Policy, Inc.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler was a featured speaker, along with Susan Meisinger of HRExecutive Online at yesterday’s forum, moderated by Women’s Policy Inc. President Cindy Hall and Rep. Gwen Moore.
Shuler shared with attendees a story about her first job working at a restaurant as a waitress, making only five cents above minimum wage. All the waitresses were women and all the cooks were men. Although the men were already paid more than the women, the waitresses had to pool their tips together and divide the money with the cooks as well. It was her “first
experience with wage, gender and workplace frustration.” Read the rest of this entry »
UNITEHERE! Local 6—a Dynamic Force in N.Y. City
Despite the odds, members of UNITEHERE! Local 6 won respect and a contract that boosts wages and health care coverage from a restaurant owner who likened workers to chairs—yet another victory for the 23,000 low-wage service employees who are members of New York City’s dynamic union.
Today’s American Prospect feature on Local 6 showcases an effective union model that helps hotel, motel and restaurant workers win a voice on the job.
Check it out here.
Poll: Economic Security the Highest Priority for Young Workers
Emmelle Israel, an AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow, is taking part in the Next Up Summit and sends us this report.
A poll among young people attending the 2011 AFL-CIO Next Up Young Workers Summit shows their highest priorites are economic security, job security and government action to improve the nation’s economy.
More than 800 young workers, students and activists took part in poll in the days leading up to the Summit which is taking place now through Sunday in Minneapolis. The poll was conducted via text message and the results were published this afternoon.
Some 67 percent of participants say they value economic security over economic opportunity
(33 percent), and 41 percent of those surveyed value job security over benefits (32 percent) and wages (27 percent). Read the rest of this entry »
U.S. Working Poor Now Majority in Poverty
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How appropriate. We’re drowning in rain here in the nation’s capital, while outside the Beltway, America’s working families are drowning in one disastrous economic wave after another. A few recent nuggets.
- The new working-age (18-64) poor now make up nearly three out of five poor people—a switch from the early 1970s, when children made up the main impoverished group. The nation’s working-age poor share surpasses a previous high of 55.5 percent, first reached in 2004—and are at the highest level since the 1960s when the war on poverty was launched.
- People who are laid off from previously stable employment, if they are lucky enough to find work, take a median wage hit of more than 20 percent, which can persist for decades.
- The median working-age household saw its income decline by $2,700 from 2007 to 2009. As a result, the typical working-age household brought in roughly $5,000 less in 2009 than it did in 2000.
- As the chart here shows, CEO pay last year jumped an average 27.8 percent and is now 325 times the average pay of a U.S. worker.
- The New York Times is now asking, “Can the Middle Class Be Rebuilt?” implying, of course, that the foundation of solid middle-wage earners that fueled America’s historic strength is broken beyond possible repair.
Obama: A Voice on the Job Is Everyone’s Right
President Obama spent Labor Day in Detroit speaking with working families in an event sponsored by the Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and other top union leaders joined Obama, who asserted his strong support for workers’ freedom to seek a voice at work through a union.
And I want everybody here to know, as long as I’m in the White House I’m going to stand up for collective bargaining….Because having a voice on the job and a chance to organize and a chance to negotiate for a fair day’s pay after a hard day’s work, that is the right of every man and woman in America—not just the CEO in the corner office, but also the janitor who cleans that office after the CEO goes home. Everybody has got the same right.
Obama blasted efforts by lawmakers to take away workers’ ability to collectively bargain for good middle-class jobs.
When I hear some of these folks trying to take collective bargaining rights away, trying to pass so-called “right to work” laws for private sector workers—that really mean the right to work for less and less and less—when I hear some of this talk I know this is not about economics. This is about politics.
In his remarks, Trumka pointed to Labor Day as the:
ZERO Jobs Added in August, Jobless Rate Stays at 9.1%
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The U.S. economy added no jobs in August—that’s ZERO jobs—and the nation’s unemployment rate remained at 9.1 percent, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data out this morning.
The August jobs report is the worst since September 2010. Some 14 million workers remain unemployed, but a total of some 26 million Americans are unemployed, underemployed or have stopped looking for work.
Employment increased primarily in two areas: health care by 30,000 and mining by 6,000. Employment in the information industry declined by 48,000 in August, with 45,000 workers at Verizon on strike. Manufacturing lost 3,000 jobs and employment in construction, trade, transporation and other areas changed little over the month. Job loss in the public sector totaled 17,000 in August. Since employment peaked in September 2008, local government has lost 550,000 jobs.
The unemployment rate for adult men is 8.9 percent and 8 percent for women. Some 16.7 percent of African Americans and 11.3 percent of Hispanics are unemployed, with teenagers at 25.4 percent unemployment.
New Jobs Created Are Nearly All Low-Wage
So, even as there are still 4.7 workers for every one job, the jobs that are being created are primarily low-wage—and the wages in those jobs have fallen disproportionately, according to a new report by the National Employment Law Project (NELP).
From the first quarter of 2010 through the first quarter of 2011, the most recent data available, lower-wage occupations grew by 3.2 percent, with retail salespersons, office clerks, cashiers, food preparation workers and stock clerks topping the list. Mid-wage occupations, including paralegals, customer service representatives and machinists, grew by only 1.2 percent, while higher-wage occupations declined by 1.2 percent, which includes occupations like engineers, registered nurses and finance workers.
While overall, wages have fallen 0.6 percent since the start of the recession, lower-wage jobs Read the rest of this entry »
