Catherwood LibraryILR School

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) today released the 2002-2003 edition of its "The State of Working America" report on income equality---or the lack thereof---and its implications for the working men and women of America and the country as a whole. The overall results of the study coauthored by EPI president and former Cornell Professor Lawrence Mishell reveal that the same trends of growing income polarization, the disappearance of the middle class and the loss of family time as parents work longer hours to make ends meet, are all continuing in the absence of high union density. And while low and middle income workers made real gains in wage levels in the second half of the 1990?s, and the rate at which the income gap is growing appears to have slowed, the report points out that the possibility of a jobless recovery from the recent recession may mean we are returning to a period of accelerated growth in income inequality.