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Older Workers' Wages Are Growing - But Not Fast Enough

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Abstract

With inflation now a top concern among the U.S. public, workers face a race between wage gains and price increases. Older workers, despite receiving better raises than they have in many years, are losing that race. Like the rest of the labor force, older workers have benefited from significant increases in their hourly pay: in the past six months, median year-over-year wage growth averaged 3.9 percent for workers 55 and older - up from wage growth of 2.4 percent before the pandemic (Figure 1). Nevertheless, while pay is growing relatively quickly for older workers, their wage growth still lags behind that of mid-career workers (ages 35 to 54). And nominal wage growth - which is unadjusted for inflation - has been surpassed by a steep rise in prices over the past year, causing a decline in on Davis

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  • Owen Davis & Siavash Radpour, 2021. "Older Workers' Wages Are Growing - But Not Fast Enough," SCEPA publication series. 2021-04, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.
    • Handle: RePEc:epa:cepapb:2021-04
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    File URL: https://www.economicpolicyresearch.org/images/Retirement_Project/status_of_older_workers_reports/Q2_OWAG_2021_V6.pdf
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    older workers; recession; COVID-19; coronavirus; downward mobility; poverty; unemployment; wages; involuntary retirement; retirement; 401k; Medicare; Older Workers Bureau; racial disparities; disparities; inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy
    • J60 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - General
    • J88 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - Public Policy
    • J58 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Public Policy

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