Minnesota Still Outperforming “Right to Work” Wisconsin

For most of the last decade, earnings in Minnesota and Wisconsin grew at a similar pace—until 2015. In that year, Wisconsin adopted its so-called “right to work” (RTW) law. Since then, earnings growth in Wisconsin slowed relative to Minnesota. In 2017, the average...

Education Alone Does Not Explain the Racial/Ethnic Earnings Gap

Americans in general experienced strong earnings growth from 2014 to 2015; this was especially true for blacks and Hispanics, as noted in the preceding article in this series. Over the longer term, however, the earnings gap between white Americans and most minority...

2015 Earnings Finally Surpass Pre-Great Recession Levels

Median earnings among Americans have finally exceeded pre-Great Recession levels, according to 2015 data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2016 Current Population Survey (CPS), thanks to strong growth from 2014 to 2015. Growth in earnings was a major contributor to the...