03/19/2024

News

Income and Wage Gaps Across the US

This spring, payroll employment in the US reached an all-time high, finally surpassing the pre-recession peak of 138.4 million jobs in the first quarter of 2008. At that time many said that the 8.7 million jobs lost in the Great Recession had at last been re-gained. However, they are not the same jobs that were lost, nor will unemployment have returned to a level less than the 5% of 2008. Much press reporting during this long economic recovery has expressed worry that low wage jobs dominate the labor market rebound, that the middle income household has not advanced economically, and that most of the income gains of the US have gone to those with high incomes, skewing the distribution of income in the US towards the wealthy or high-income earners.

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