At a time when food banks are seeing up to an 1,800% surge in foot traffic, reports indicate wages have not kept up with the cost of living. While immediately driven by the temporary pause in SNAP benefits caused by the recent federal shutdown, the rising demand for food and other household assistance is not new.
“It is no secret that workers across the country are feeling stressed, strained, and under attack,” Julie Su, former acting U.S. Secretary of Labor and senior fellow for research firm The Century Foundation, said in a Nov. 10 report. “Paychecks aren’t enough to pay the rent, life-saving safety protections are being stripped away, and workers are spending longer looking for a job.”
The Century Foundation’s report is laid out like a playbook for how states can fill in the gaps left by employers and hold corporate employers accountable. The report calls out private companies employing workers in low-wage jobs amid the high cost of living.
“Coupled with today’s high costs, low wages leave many working people unable to afford basics such as groceries and gas — much less get ahead,” the report said.
This mirrors previous data from Monster: In a May report, 95% of U.S. workers surveyed said wages have not kept up with the cost of living. Of the more than 1,200 U.S. workers surveyed, only 9% said they had received a raise or salary adjustment to offset higher costs.
More than three-quarters of workers surveyed told Monster that economic policies from the new administration made a direct impact on their financial planning. Notably, 94% of workers said that groceries were the fastest rising expense at the time.
Not only did cost-of-living increases lead workers to do things like delay major purchases or take on additional debt, but these increases also led workers to reduce contributions to retirement funds and look for higher-paying jobs, Monster found.
“Employees are increasingly open to leaving jobs for higher pay, while financial stress is contributing to lower productivity and higher burnout,” Monster researchers said. “For employers, this signals an urgent need to revisit compensation strategies, benefits, and support systems — or risk losing talent to competitors.”
States can help by enacting “next generation” pro-worker policies, The Century Foundation said. These include phasing out subminimum wages, strengthening enforcement of workers’ rights, enacting equal pay measures such as salary history bans and pay transparency laws, and expanding training partnerships, among other policies.
