The benefits associated with acquiring increased years of schooling, especially a college degree, are well-established. A prominent benefit is increased social mobility. But the opportunities for completing a college education are not equally distributed. Gaps in college entry and graduation have widened between students from low- and high-income families over recent decades. Less affluent students are also less likely to attend higher quality institutions, even when they have skills and abilities equal to those of more affluent students.

Co-funded with the MacArthur Foundation

Disparities in educational achievement and attainment between low- and high-income students have grown over the last four decades—an era of rising economic inequality. Some evidence has linked increased inequality and disparities in educational outcomes, but the mechanisms by which this occurs are much less clear.

Data from the Census Bureau show that the returns to a college education have increased over time and that by 2012, the gap in median annual earnings between households with a college degree and those with a high-school diploma was nearly $60,000. Despite this, increases in post-secondary attainment appear to have flat-lined, with low-income students particularly affected.

It has been well-documented that economic inequality has increased since the 1970s. The rise in income inequality is characterized by several different trends; these include an overall widening of the wage distribution during the 1980s, rising wage polarization since the early 1990s, and a substantial increase in the earnings share of the top 1%. Earnings have also become more unstable since the 1970s.

Co-funded with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation

There has been significant controversy about the effects of globalization in general and offshoring in particular. Proponents argue that it contributes to economic growth; critics, that it increases inequality by lowering the relative employment and wages of less-skilled workers.

Despite the narrowing of the gender gap in education in developed and to a certain extent in developing countries, and the fact that women account for nearly forty-seven percent of the global labor-force, women’s under-representation in the corporate, financial and legal sectors, especially at the top levels, has been widely documented. However, empirical evidence has mainly focused on gender inequality in labor-force participation and earnings.

The federal subminimum wage has been $2.13 for twenty-three years, and nineteen states currently follow the federal policy. Twenty-five states plus the District of Columbia have implemented subminimum floors above $2.13, but below their regular minimums, and seven states do not allow for a subminimum wage. At present, 40 percent of the U.S. workforce is located in states that pay $2.13; 43 percent work in states with subminimum wages from $2.23 to $7.00; and 41 percent of the workforce resides in no-tip credit states where the sub-wage is currently $7.25 to $9.32.

Jointly funded with the Washington Center for Equitable Growth

The relationship between national economic growth and the incomes of the vast majority of American households showed a profound U-turn around 1980. The conventional assumption that growth will be proportionately shared with all households was a reasonably good approximation for the 1940s-70s. But around 1980, a steadily expanding gap began to develop between productivity growth and worker compensation.

While the international offshoring of work in global supply chains has been the focus of much research over the last decade, its domestic counterpart has received relatively little scholarly attention. Despite evidence that substantial growth in domestic outsourcing has accompanied growth in offshore outsourcing, little is known about the extent of domestic contracting out and its implications for workers.