Workers in Michigan made the least progress in wages over the period than all states except for Alaska, and the report finds a startling 24 percent decline in the median wage for black workers over three decades compared with 1 percent decline for white workers, when adjusted for inflation.
Increasing
the state’s minimum wage and making post-secondary education and training more
accessible are ways to turn the trends around, according to the Labor Day
Report: Paycheck Blues, released by the Michigan League for Public Policy.
“Wages
are an important gauge of the health of an economy. We all want Michigan to be
a state where hard work is rewarded,’’ said Gilda Z. Jacobs, president &
CEO of the Michigan League for Public Policy. “When wages are low, the economy
suffers, putting a strain on public assistance programs while generating less
revenue to maintain public structures and needed services.’’
Only
those workers at the top have experienced gains since 1982. Workers earning the
most (those in the 90th percentile earning $38.25 an hour) are able to purchase
22 percent more than workers in the 90th percentile in 1982.
Workers
in the 50th percentile, or the median wage, however, saw a 7 percent decline in
purchasing power between 1982 and 2012.
Those
workers experiencing the worst decline were black workers. In 2012, white workers
earned $4.20 an hour more on average than black workers, the largest disparity
over three decades.
Gaps
in education levels and the concentration of black residents in high-poverty
areas with little access to employment are among reasons that may be driving
the growing disparity.
“For
us to prosper we need an economy that works for all. Growing wage disparities
threaten the economic health of all of us,’’ Jacobs said.
Jerry Wolffe is the Writer-in-Residence/Advocate at Large
for the Macomb-Oakland Regional Center. He can be reached at 586 263-8950.
