News & Events

The gap between White Americans’ wages and everybody else's grew even larger in the first quarter of this year, according to new data from LISEP, the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity.

While wages for many Americans have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, earnings for Black workers declined in the first quarter of 2021, with the wage gap between Black and White workers growing to its highest level since before the pandemic, according to an analysis of earnings data by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity.

The percentage of Black Americans unable to find a living-wage job climbed to its highest level in six months, even while other segments of the population enjoyed marginal improvement, according to an analysis released today by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity.

A new cadre of financial regulators can transform the financial world’s role in the fight against prejudice and inequality.

Policymakers shouldn’t be fooled by a bullish stock market or what appears to be plummeting unemployment rates. Now is not the time to take our foot off the gas.

American workers are making less than official estimates show, according to new analysis. U.S. workers earn a median weekly wage of $797, or $41,456 a year, according to the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, which analyzed data up until 2020. That’s 19% below official estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a widely-used measure of pay.

American workers have seen their real earnings grow by less than 10% over the last two decades, with a growing racial gap where gains by Black workers are half that of their White counterparts, according to new earnings data released by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity.

Low wages, risky jobs put LGBTQ+ people, BIPOC and women in the line of fire

“The bottom line is that things aren’t actually getting better for the average worker,” said Gene Ludwig, founder of the organization and chairman of financial consulting firm Promontory Financial Group who served as President Clinton’s Comptroller of the Currency. “You can’t make good policy without knowing what the facts are.”

A new analysis of unemployment data further underscores the need for the strong relief measures included in the recently approved $1.9 trillion federal economic stimulus package, according to Gene Ludwig, chairman of the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity.

The country needs this amount of relief — or more.

As the world of finance has changed, the Community Reinvestment Act’s reach has failed to keep pace. Of most concern, large portions of the lending marketplace have been claimed by nonbank lenders that are not subject to the CRA’s regulations. Today, that disparity threatens to undermine the spirit of equality the CRA intended nearly a half-century ago.

Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity Chair Gene Ludwig joins the Yahoo Finance Live panel to discuss the impact of unemployment amid the coronavirus pandemic.

While American workers as a whole, particularly women, saw incremental growth in living-wage job opportunities in January, Black workers lost ground, according to an analysis by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity.

More than one-fourth of American workers remain without a job that lifts them above the poverty level, presenting a major challenge for the new Congress and the Biden Administration, according to the latest analysis of the country’s unemployment rate released today by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity. At the same time, racial and gender gaps have widened, exacerbating economic inequity.

These days the headline unemployment rate isn’t just an undercount, it actually paints an alternate reality that masks the degree to which low- and moderate-income people are hurting. As a result, policymakers believe these Americans are better off than they actually are.

Of the various measures of the coronavirus pandemic’s comet strike on the U.S. economy, one especially reveals the size of the crater: Over a six-month period, nearly 8 million Americans have tumbled into poverty.

More than a quarter of Americans desiring full-time work found themselves without a living-wage job in November, with women losing substantial ground in the workforce, according to a report released by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity.

The true unemployment rate for women isn't going down, as official statistics suggest. In fact, it's going up — at least according to the most recent analysis of official data from LISEP, the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity.

Official government figures show that unemployment around the U.S. has fallen sharply since peaking at nearly 15% in April as the coronavirus was shuttering businesses left and right. Yet the jobless rate as depicted in headlines offers a skewed picture of employment today, failing to capture the real financial pressure bearing down on millions of Americans, according to a new study.

The opportunity for Americans to find a living wage job during the month of October remains stagnant in spite of improving unemployment data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, according to an analysis by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity.

A new economic indicator launched today by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity reveals a True Rate of Unemployment of 26.1 percent for September, compared to the accurate but misleading 7.9 percent reported by the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Gene Ludwig rose to become comptroller of the currency from a humble childhood in the once-thriving industrial city of York, Pa. In a groundbreaking book, The Vanishing American Dream, he brings academics, policymakers, and business leaders together to discuss why cities like York were struggling even before the coronavirus pandemic. During the good times, positive economic indicators — low unemployment rates and rising GDP — shrouded the heart-rending reality that, for much of the population, the American Dream has fallen farther out of reach. During an electric conference bringing experts from left, right, and center together at Yale Law School, luminaries from Larry Summers to Glenn Hubbard asked two fundamental questions: Why are so many lower- and middle-income families worse off than they were a generation earlier? And what can be done to set things straight?

Former Comptroller of the Currency Gene Ludwig has written a book, The Vanishing American Dream, about the plight of middle- and low-income Americans.

GDP and unemployment numbers support the notion that times are good. They say our economic policy is sound, and the status quo is working. But a different picture emerges looking at the homeless people gathered by the Federal Reserve building in DC, or in visiting my hometown, York, Pennsylvania, where wages have stagnated and factories have closed. In reality, most Americans actually are poorer now than they were before.

To read the economic reports coming out of Washington, you might assume that the American economy is firing on all cylinders. But beneath this rosy picture is a much darker reality.

Americans have been justifiably disturbed by stories of deep-pocketed corporations accepting loans from the Paycheck Protection Program designed to save small businesses and non-profits. But outrage over generous loans to well-heeled businesses is obscuring another troubling problem: The Federal Reserve’s efforts to preserve liquidity in the corporate debt market are, however inadvertently, sending wealth up the income scale, exacerbating inequality.

Present markets will probably prompt lenders to serve wealthier individuals and bigger companies first, exacerbating inequality. Fortunately, regulators have within their grasp several tools to direct lending to the businesses and low-income families — including many minority communities — where it will do the most good.

A person who is looking for a full-time job that pays a living wage — but who can't find one — is unemployed. If you accept that definition, the true unemployment rate in the U.S. is a stunning 26.1%, according to an important new dataset shared exclusively with "Axios on HBO."

The winner of the race for the White House will face a generation of low-to-middle income Americans struggling to get back to work because of a health crisis not seen in more than 100 years.