Pew Research: Eight key points about the U.S. labor market

Pew Research: Eight key points about the U.S. labor market

8 September 2015, 11:50
Angeliqi N
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In a report released last week, Pew Research Center brought to light eight important facts about the American employee and noted that although the U.S. economy seems to be gaining momentum, there is still a lot of debate on how to best secure the future of American workers.

1) Union membership has nearly halved over the past 30 years.

“Union membership peaked in 1954 at nearly 35% of all U.S. wage and salary workers, but it’s fallen to just over 11% in 2014,” they noted. Going further, the firm found that there is still broad support for the right of workers to unionize across a range of industries.

2) Millenials are now the largest generation in the U.S. labor force.

“More than one-in-three American workers today are Millennials (adults ages 18 to 34 in 2015), and this year they surpassed Generation X (ages 35 to 50 in 2015) to become the largest share of the American workforce,” they said.

3) There is still a disadvantage for women in the workforce, but the gap seems to be shrinking.

“American women earn 83 cents on the dollar compared with men, but the youngest working women are narrowing that gap substantially,” they said, noting that from ages 25 to 30, women make about 91% of men’s hourly earnings, while women ages 16 to 24 make about 93% of what men make.

4) With lingering concerns over the high cost of higher education in the country, the research found that a college diploma may be worth it.

“On virtually every measure of economic well-being and career attainment, young college graduates are outperforming their peers with less education to a greater extent than in the past,” they said, adding that the pay gap was significantly smaller in previous generations.

5) College graduates aged 25 to 32 working full time in 2013 earned more annually - about $17,500 more - than employed young adults holding only a high school diploma.

6) Increasing the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour has been broadly popular, but less among Republicans.

Pew also noted that Democrats’ efforts in Congress to go ahead with the bill have been stalled.

“Nine-in-ten Democrats surveyed backed a minimum wage increase, but support among Republicans was more divided, with 53% supporting an increase and 43% opposed,” they said, adding that 73% of people surveyed by Pew in early 2014 favored the increase.

7) A smaller share of teens work today when compared to the 1970s.

8) New overtime rules could help more than 5 million white-collar workers get extra pay.

“A new proposal by the Labor Department would increase the salary threshold used to help determine eligibility for overtime,” Pew explained.

“Most of the newly eligible under the proposal would be retail and food service managers, office administrators, low-level financial workers and other modestly paid managers and office professionals, according to our estimates.”

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