This Week’s Top Hits

Lee Adler says that the problem with polls is that they are data points. What people do could be different. And we’re in a different world today compared to three years ago when King Soopers workers walked out for nine days.

“I think that we are set up for more conflict than we’ve had in the past,” said Erica Groshen, who served as BLS commissioner in the Obama administration.

This piece cites research by economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn that showed that while the overall size of the wage gap has decreased somewhat over time, the proportion of the gap that is unexplained by human capital variables is increasing.

"Inflation rose faster and before wages and so you kind of expect a period of time after inflation starts to come down that wage increases are higher than inflation to kind of bring things back to where they were .." Erica Groshen said.

“All companies I talk to are really focused on driving productivity [and] lowering cost. It pushes things in favor of employers,” says Bradford Bell, professor in strategic human resources.

Linda Barrington, executive director of the Institute for Compensation Studies, says “There were a number of contracts that came due, and all of that bargaining is starting to show up in these numbers.”