Causes of Wage Stagnation

Research from the Economic Policy Institute points to potential causes of wage stagnation and the resulting economic inequality. This dismal wage growth is the result of intentional policy choices made on behalf of those with the most income,wealth, and political power. As explained below, these choices fall into five broad categories: the abandonment of fullemployment as a main objective of economic policymaking, declining union density, various labor market policies andbusiness practices, policies that have allowed CEOs and finance executives to capture ever larger shares of economicgrowth, and globalization policies. Collectively, these policy decisions have shifted economic power away from low- andmiddle-wage workers and toward corporate owners and managers

The State of Working America 2006/2007

[Excerpt] Yet, despite this unequivocally beneficial development, many Americans report dissatisfaction with where the economy seems to be headed, and many worry about their own and their children’s well-being. These concerns have led some policy makers and economists to ask: why aren’t people happier about the economy? The question seems reasonable to those who follow the top-line numbers of the economy, such as the growth of the total economy (e.g. gross domestic product), the stock market, or corporate profits. The question is easily answered, however, for those who follow and report on the data that fill the chapters of this book

The State of Working America, 2004/2005

The State of Working America, prepared biennially since 1988 by the Economic Policy Institute, includes a wide variety of data on family incomes, wages, taxes, unemployment, wealth, and poverty--data that enable the authors to closely examine the effect of the economy on the living standards of the American people

The State of Working America

[Excerpt] Like its predecessors, this edition of The State of Working America digs deeply into a broad range of data to answer a basic question that headline numbers on gross domestic product, inflation, stock indices, productivity, and other metrics can\u27t wholly answer: How well has the American economy worked to provide acceptable growth in living standards for most households? According to the data, the short answer is, not well at all. The past 10 years have been a lost decade of wage and income growth for most American families. A quarter century of wage stagnation and slow income growth preceded this lost decade, largely because rising wage, income, and wealth inequality funneled the rewards of economic growth to the top. The sweep of the research in this book shows that these trends are the result of inadequate, wrong, or absent policy responses. Ample economic growth in the past three-and-a-half decades provided the potential to substantially raise living standards across the board, but economic policies frequently served the interests of those with the most wealth, income, and political power and prevented broad-based prosperity

Using administrative data to estimate graduation rates: Challenges, Proposed solutions and their pitfalls.

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in understanding the levels and trends in high school graduation in the U.S. A big and influential literature has argued that the “true” high school graduation rate remains at an unsatisfactory level, and that the graduation rates for minorities (Blacks and Hispanics) are alarmingly low. In this paper we take a closer look at the different measures of high school graduation which have recently been proposed and which yield such low estimates of graduation rates. We argue that the nature of the variables in the Common Core of Data, the dataset maintained by the U.S. Department of Education that is the main source for all of the new measures, requires caution in calculating graduation rates, and the adjustments that have been proposed often impart significant downward bias to the estimates

NEPC Review: How Much Are Public School Teachers Paid?

The Manhattan Institute report, How Much Are Public School Teachers Paid?, uses hourly earnings from the 2005 National Compensation Survey (NCS) to contend that teachers are better paid than most white-collar professionals, including many in occupations commonly understood to be quite lucrative. The report relies on hourly earnings data in an attempt to provide an apples-to-apples comparison of pay for a standard unit of work. Unfortunately, this approach is fundamentally flawed because the NCS calculation of weeks and hours worked is very different for teachers and other professionals. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics &mdash; which publishes the NCS &mdash; has explicitly warned its users not to use hourly rates of pay in this exact same context. It is unclear why the authors of this report have apparently have chosen to ignore that warning, but what remains is a measure of compensation that is of very little use in informing policy discussions of teacher pay.</p

Patients with chronic hepatitis C undergoing watchful waiting: Exploring trajectories of illness uncertainty and fatigue

We identified trajectories of illness uncertainty in chronic hepatitis C patients and examined their association with fatigue levels during 12 months of disease monitoring without treatment (watchful waiting). Sixty-two men and 63 women completed uncertainty and fatigue measures. Groups were formed by uncertainty scores (high, medium, low) at baseline. Baseline fatigue levels were higher in the high uncertainty group than in the medium and low groups. Over time, uncertainty levels did not change. Fatigue levels in the low uncertainty group remained constant, increased in the medium, and decreased in the high groups. Findings suggest that uncertainty and fatigue do not remit spontaneously. Being aware of this may help nurses identify those patients needing support for these two concerns