The Key to Increasing Wages and Productivity

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The Key to Increasing Wages and Productivity

InsideCapitolDome
The best way for Oregon to strengthen its economy is by investing more to create a better educated workforce, according to a national report by the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN).

The Key to Increasing Wages and Productivity

The best way for Oregon to strengthen its economy is by investing more to create a better educated workforce, according to a national report by the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN).

The EARN report, A Well-Educated Workforce is Key to State Prosperity(PDF) found “clear and strong” evidence that states’ workforces with higher levels of educational attainment tend to be more productive and enjoy a higher median wage. The median wage represents what the typical worker earns.

If Oregon lawmakers want a stronger economy — one where typical Oregonians earn more — they need to raise our workforce’s educational attainment. That means lawmakers need to invest more in education, from early childhood through higher education.

The EARN report also documents that cutting taxes in the hopes of attracting businesses would not increase wages. The authors found “no clear relationship” between state tax levels and median wages.

Tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy not only won’t strengthen our economy, they will waste valuable resources needed to better educate our workforce.

The report found that median wages hover around $15 an hour in the 22 states with the least-educated workforces, defined as states with 30 percent or less of the workforce with at least a bachelor’s degree.

By contrast, in the three states where more than 40 percent of the population has at least a bachelor’s degree, median wages are $19 to $20 an hour. That is nearly a third higher than in states with the least-educated workforces.

So what should Oregon and other states do? Increase access to postsecondary education by curbing tuition growth and increasing financial aid, reduce high school dropout rates, move people without high school degrees through GED and associate degree programs, increase the quality of K-12 education to improve success of high school graduates in postsecondary education, and offer universal preschool programs

We know what’s preventing higher educational attainment and what’s needed to improve it. We just need to make those policies a priority and stop the wasteful tax subsidies that plainly don’t work and rob the state of valuable resources.

 


This blog post was originally published on www.blueoregon.com on August 22, 2013. The original post can be found at http://www.blueoregon.com/2013/08/key-increasing-wages-and-productivity/.

OCPP

OCPP

Written by staff at the Oregon Center for Public Policy.
Chuck Sheketoff

Chuck Sheketoff

Chuck Sheketoff is a founder of the Oregon Center for Public Policy and former Executive Director. Incorporated in 1995, the Center was launched with Chuck as its first executive director after Chuck received the "public interest pioneer award" from the Stern Family Fund in September, 1997. Prior to starting the Center, Chuck lobbied the Oregon legislature on tax policies and on human services programs' policies and budgets on behalf of legal aid clients (1992 to 1996) and the low-income clients of the Oregon Law Center (1997).

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