When it comes to raising the minimum wage, most of the action is in cities and states, not Congress
The $7.25 federal minimum wage is used in just 21 states, which collectively account for about 40% of all U.S. wage and salary workers.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The $7.25 federal minimum wage is used in just 21 states, which collectively account for about 40% of all U.S. wage and salary workers.
To mark Labor Day, here’s what we know about who American workers are, what they do and the U.S. working environment in general.
After months of campaigning, debating, polling and fundraising, Democratic presidential candidates face their first real-world test Feb. 3.
Veterans of prime working age generally fare at least as well as non-veterans in the U.S. job market, though there are differences in the work they do.
While the 115th Congress was more legislatively active than its recent predecessors, the proportion of substantive to ceremonial legislation was much the same.
The government shutdown has squeezed the daily flood of data from federal agencies down to a trickle. Take a look at what data are and are not available.
On election night 2018, besides the exit polls there will be an additional source of data on who voted and why, developed by The Associated Press, Fox News and NORC at the University of Chicago and based on a very different methodology. That means that depending on where you go for election news, you may get a somewhat different portrait of this year’s electorate.
Most Americans like labor unions, at least in the abstract. A majority (55%) holds a favorable view of unions, versus 33% who hold an unfavorable view, according to a Pew Research Center survey from earlier this year. Despite those fairly benign views, unionization rates in the United States have dwindled in recent decades. As of 2017, just 10.7% of all wage and salary workers were union members, matching the record low set in 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Despite some ups and downs over the past several decades, today’s real average wage in the U.S. has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And most of what wage gains there have been have flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers.
Although manufacturing jobs have fallen over the past three decades, improved productivity has kept manufacturing output rising – contrary to what many Americans believe. But over the past few years, productivity growth has been sluggish at best.
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