Institute Insights

September 2020

EQUALITY IN THE U.S. STARTS WITH BETTER JOBS

Capitalism is at a crossroads. Even in the pre-pandemic world, 70% of Americans believed the system was rigged against their interests. 40% of Americans, disproportionately Black, could not cover an unexpected $400 expense. In August 2019, the Business Roundtable announced its revised statement of purpose, making a commitment to build an economy that

serves “all Americans.” Tom Wilson, CEO of Allstate, wrote an op-ed calling on boards to support economic stability by increasing wages.

COVID-19 has only exacerbated these issues and created greater need for business leadership. What can business leaders do to meet this moment? GJI President Zeynep Ton issues a call to the business world in Equality in the U.S. Starts with Better Jobs, outlining 6 steps leaders can take to begin addressing inequities:

1) Recognize the problem and make a collective pledge to address it.

2) Commit to raise low wages.

3) Provide career paths for low-wage workers.

4) Disclose pay and turnover data.

5) Involve workers in technology decisions that affect their work.

6) Drive public policies that improve workers’ wellbeing and the economy.

“If there ever was a lose-lose for workers and companies, bad jobs with low wages are it.”

A TOOLKIT FOR BETTER BUSINESS

GJI has created new tools to help companies meet this call to action.

Pay Analysis Methodology: Our Pay Analysis Methodology will take you through an eight-step process to evaluate the annual take-home pay rates of your employees and compare that with the MIT Living Wage Calculator. A Pay Analysis can help your firm visualize its distribution of wages and use that information to identify any disparities by race, gender or other metrics.

Good Jobs Calculator: Making the leap to good jobs can feel financially daunting. The costs of providing good jobs, such as wage or benefit increases, are immediate and easy to quantify, while the greatest benefits, including revenue uplift and cost reduction, are further out and harder to quantify. To illustrate the possible uplift of a good jobs system, GJI has created the “Good Jobs Calculator.” Using different assumptions about the amount of improvement or uplift achievable, executives can run scenarios on the bottom-line impact of a good jobs system. In addition to giving an overall “size of prize” range, quantifying these benefits can help them understand what would have to be true — specific improvements in metrics like turnover, shrink, and basket size — to justify a given investment in creating a good jobs system.

Wage Commitments: Lastly, we have compiled a list of Wage Commitments by industry to track companies that have committed to raising starting wages to $15 or more per hour. If you have more to add to the list, send us an email.

GJI has created new tools to help companies meet this call to action.

Pay Analysis Methodology: Our Pay Analysis Methodology will take you through an eight-step process to evaluate the annual take-home pay rates of your employees and compare that with the MIT Living Wage Calculator. A Pay Analysis can help your firm visualize its distribution of wages and use that information to identify any disparities by race, gender or other metrics.

Good Jobs Calculator: Making the leap to good jobs can feel financially daunting. The costs of providing good jobs, such as wage or benefit increases, are immediate and easy to quantify, while the greatest benefits, including revenue uplift and cost reduction, are further out and harder to quantify. To illustrate the possible uplift of a good jobs system, GJI has created the “Good Jobs Calculator.” Using different assumptions about the amount of improvement or uplift achievable, executives can run scenarios on the bottom-line impact of a good jobs system. In addition to giving an overall “size of prize” range, quantifying these benefits can help them understand what would have to be true — specific improvements in metrics like turnover, shrink, and basket size — to justify a given investment in creating a good jobs system.

Wage Commitments: Lastly, we have compiled a list of Wage Commitments by industry to track companies that have committed to raising starting wages to $15 or more per hour. If you have more to add to the list, send us an email.

WORK & RACE IN THE COVID-ERA

COVID-19 has taken a tremendous toll on our country and on frontline workers—many have lost jobs, others have kept working and put their health at risk. When the pandemic hit, GJI began sharing resources for impacted workers. We also published HBR articles highlighting how companies like Costco and H-E-B were keeping workers safe and how other companies can use this moment to improve jobs and implement much needed structural change.

Then in May, the country erupted into protests against racism and police brutality, putting a long-needed spotlight on systemic racism in the US. Racial and economic justice are inextricably linked. We have compiled statistics on race and service work to help illuminate gaps in pay, scheduling, career paths and more in our new data summary on Race and Low Wage Work.

WHAT WE'RE READING

I am Not a Tractor! How Florida Farmworkers Took On the Fast Food Giants and Won by Susan L. Marquis
Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass by Mary L. Gray and Siddarth Suri
Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What We Can Do about It by Erin Kelly and Phyllis Moen
Direct Care Work Is Real Work: Elevating the Role of the Direct Care Worker (PDF report) by Angelina Del Rio Drake at PHI
Steady Work by Karen Gaudet at LEI

Helping companies thrive by creating good jobs

Want to work together or learn more about Good Jobs Institute? Email us at info@goodjobsinstitute.org