Income & Wages

Americans are generally satisfied with their own jobs but believe that wages, benefits, job security and employer loyalty have deteriorated over the past generation for most workers, a new survey finds.

College-educated left-handed men earn 21% more than male righties with college diplomas. But there's no wage differential between left and right handed women. Go figure. Also, find out why 2002 was an off year for girl babies in Korea.

Democratic leaders, impressed by the purported success of GOP-backed ballot initiatives to ban same sex marriage in the 2004 election are pushing their own wedge initiatives to increase the minimum wage. But are such ballot measures really as potent as claimed?

Republican or Democrat, rich or poor, north, east, south or west, the U.S. public says it's time for a big boost for the lowest paid.

In order to better understand the impact of some proposals before Congress, this fact sheet examines the labor force status of unauthorized workers who have been in the country for five years or less.

Beyond partisanship -- and behind those healthy economic indicators -- Americans may be seeing something that most economists overlook.

Hispanics and whites perform different types of work in the labor market. Moreover, the occupational divide between the two largest segments of the labor force appears to be widening.

Hispanic workers enjoyed significant gains in employment in 2004. But the concentration of Latinos in relatively low-skill occupations contributed to reduced earnings for them for the second year in a row.

The "jobless recovery" may have turned around, but gains for Latinos have not been widespread. Immigrant Latinos, especially the most recent arrivals, have captured the most jobs.

Latinos experienced substantial gains in the U.S. labor market in 2003. The number of Hispanics added to the employment rolls was twice as high as in 2002, and unemployment eased downward. For the first time since January 2000, Latinos experienced increases in employment that consistently outpaced their population growth in the United States.