Raising Wages is a Key Tool in the Fight Against Poverty
Channel: Economic Policy Institute
Date: 2015-05-20

Representative Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Center For Community Change Executive Director Deepak Bhargava discuss the connection between raising wages and reducing poverty. Elise Gould, senior economist at EPI, presents findings from her latest report, Broad-Based Wage Growth is a Key Tool in the Fight Against Poverty.

While policy efforts to fight poverty often focus on strengthening the social safety net and tax-and-transfer system, raising wages is a missing ingredient. As wages have stagnated, the link between overall economic growth and declining poverty has been severed. If wages had grown at the same rate as productivity since 1979, 7.1 million fewer people would be in poverty.

Ellison, Bhargava, and Gould, discuss ways in which we can boost wage growth and thereby pull hardworking Americans out of poverty.