As the economy recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for low-wage labor has spiked, and along with it, wages. Betsey Stevenson, professor of public policy and economics, laid out exactly what is happening in the economy.
“What’s happening right now is not about the wages of college grads going up — it’s about the wages of lifeguards at my pool,” Stevenson said. “That closing of the wage differential could persist. Undergirding that is the sense that workers at the very bottom have options to work for a better job. What employers are used to paying won’t really cut it.”
