NEW STUDY: Prevailing Wage Laws Close Income Gaps for African Americans in Construction

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

FEBRUARY 28, 2018
PUBLISHED BY – Frank Manzo IV

Prevailing wage laws reduce income inequality between African-American and white construction workers by as much as 53% and help more blue-collar workers reach the middle class, according to new research by the Illinois Economic Policy Institute (ILEPI) and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Project for Middle Class Renewal.

“While prior research has concluded that there is no relationship between prevailing wage laws and the racial composition of the construction workforce, the data clearly shows that these laws help eliminate income disparities between black and white construction workers,” said study co-author and University of Illinois Professor Robert Bruno. “African Americans employed as laborers, plumbers, pipefitters, electricians, and heavy equipment operators see the largest gains.”

Utilizing publicly-available data from the American Community Survey, the study examined construction worker earnings by race and trade, comparing the results between states with prevailing wage laws and those without. Overall, the researchers found that prevailing wage laws lift the incomes of African American construction workers by an average of 24%, and close the income gap with white workers from 26% to just 12%.

A more advanced analysis controlling for other observable factors found that states which currently do not have a prevailing wage law could reduce income inequality for African-American construction workers by at least 7% if they implemented one.

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Column: Senate legislation to end wage theft epidemic

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By STAN ROSENBERG and SAL DIDOMENICO
Wednesday, October 19, 2016

The Massachusetts economy is working very, very well for some people, but not nearly well enough for others. That’s why we have one of the highest rates of income inequality in the country.

Building an economy that works for everyone is one of the top priorities of the Massachusetts Senate. We are fortunate to have thriving industries in Massachusetts, like solar energy, cyber security and pharmaceuticals. We have companies that make headlines around the world for the pioneering work they do. They pay their workers well, and they make a substantial contribution to our economy.

Less well known is a persistent underground economy, with companies that never make headlines and use that to their advantage to exploit some of our most vulnerable workers. Those companies don’t pay their workers good wages, and sometimes they even refuse to pay them for the work they do. That’s wage theft, and it’s against the law.

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Seattle Approves $15 Minimum Wage, Setting a New Standard for Big Cities

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on
SEATTLE – The City Council here went where no big-city lawmakers have gone before on Monday, raising the local minimum wage to $15 an hour, more than double the federal minimum, and pushing Seattle to the forefront of urban efforts to address income inequality.
The unanimous vote of the nine-member Council, after months of discussion by a committee of business and labor leaders convened by Mayor Ed Murray, will give low-wage workers here – in incremental stages, with different tracks for different sizes of business – the highest big-city minimum in the nation.

“Even before the Great Recession a lot of us have started to have doubt and concern about the basic economic promise that underpins economic life in the United States,” said Sally J. Clark, a Council member. “Today Seattle answers that challenge,” she added. “We go into uncharted, unevaluated territory.”

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