How To Improve The Treatment Of American Workers

Improving treatment of American workers
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America is one of the leading continents in the world but still remains behind its peers in terms of salary growth and inequality. It has been a low wage economy since the 1970s. This is not due to the growing forces of globalization but instead due to poor policies implemented by America. America could change course by implementing better policies that would put it on the path towards a high-wage economy like the early times. This essay focuses on the reasons why workers are paid this low and ways to improve their treatment.
Michael McCormack and Jeff Madrick’s view on low wage America.
McCormack and Madrick (2018) see low wages in the United States as a result of factors such as social fragmentation, political uncertainty and lost economic output. America’s working class has been divided into groups based on income, academic level and discrimination along race, sex and national origin. Racial inequality has persisted which extends to jobs and wages of Americans. The Blacks and Latino continue to lag behind the Whites in their income. The middle-class white household’s wealth is thirteen times greater than the middle-class black household (McCormack and Madrick,2018) Women, especially those of color, face a large wage gap, as their occupations undermine their earnings.
Wages have not kept up with the growth of productivity (McCormack and Madrick, 2018). The output of work and compensation should increase at a similar rate. This has not been the case in America since the 1970s. The productivity gains have been captured by capital instead of labor. The government has also been pointed out to cause the low wage. After the post war, there was a steady increase in both wage and productivity, but since the government changed policies in the 1970s, this has changed.
The solution to the low wage society is implementing different policy choices. An agenda that is three pronged has been proposed by the high wage America project; full commitment to industrial policy and public investment, practical education and training programs, and raised labor standards and social supports (McCormack and Madrick, 2018). America should invest in areas such as infrastructure, alternative energy and smart manufacturing. Training people upskills them into new and better jobs. The government should also support labor organizations.
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