Recent%20Trends%20in%20Compensation%20Inequality

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Recent Trends in Compensation Inequality

• Brooks Pierce

Please do not cite. The views expressed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the BLS or
the US Department of Labor.
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Purpose

• Describe changing dispersion in wage rates and
  broader measures of compensation.
• Show how benefits associated with high- and
  low-wage jobs have changed over the past decade.

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Employment Cost Index Data

• Employer survey of wages and benefit costs
• Samples jobs within establishments
• Panel data updated quarterly
• Data Issues
• partial non-response
• no within-job differences
• no covariates

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Benefit Cost Shares
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Employer Costs
Employer costs per hour worked, 2005 .
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Benefit Cost Shares
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Inequality Measures
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Benefit Contribution to Dispersion Changes
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Summary

• Wage differentials between median and low end
  jobs declined somewhat
• Wage differentials between median and high end
  jobs increased
• Some evidence that benefit cost growth was
  greater in low- to median-wage jobs

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Further Work

• Robustness
• 2006 data
• Imputations
• Pre- and post-2000 periods
• Health insurance in other data sources
• Injury risk