Is There a Pay Gap?

Yes, the pay gap is widening for workers in Kansas City and elsewhere in America according to Dana Wilkie in the four part series, “The Death of the Pay Raise”, for the Society for Human Resource Management.

There is a real wage increase of 27.41% for the top quintile wage earners and a real wage decrease of .98% for the bottom quintile wage earners from 1979-2016 according to Part One of the series, “America’s Pay Gap Is Widening”.

Families are struggling* with 66% of jobs in the U.S. paying less than $20/hour and 43% of U.S. households not earning enough to afford housing, food, child care, health care and transportation.

Stay tuned for a review of Part 2 of the Series, “Why Have Some Wages Stopped Growing?”

*According to the United Way’s ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) Report, May, 2018