Panel
Closing the Income Inequality Gap
Milken InstitutePope Francis, Christine Lagarde, Jared Bernstein, Beth Ann Bovino, Arthur Brooks, Kristin Oliver, Jeff Green
- Jeff Green anticipates technology will function as a significant job-replacement driver in coming years due to wage equalization, though he predicts a two-year timeline for this process to restore U.S. competitiveness and asserts that hotel operations will not replace employees with robots even if minimum wages rise to $12 or $15.
- Jared Bernstein forecasts a federal minimum wage proposal of $12 per hour implemented by 2020, arguing that moderate increases avoid significant disemployment effects while noting that 30 states have already raised wages, leaving the remaining resistance primarily in southern states.
- Arthur Brooks projects that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would eliminate 500,000 low-end jobs, disproportionately affecting the least skilled and African-American teenagers who face a 33.2% unemployment rate, and suggests an earned income tax credit is a superior alternative to manual wage hikes.
- Beth Ann Bovino expects minimum wage increases to generate additional tax revenues and reduce social costs, estimating that a one-year education investment for the entire workforce over a five-year period could grow the economy by more than $500 billion, while citing historical data that productivity growth slowed from doubling in 25 years to 40 years.
- Kristin Oliver states that Walmart's "Scheduling Choice" program launches next year to offer fixed schedules, and confirms reshoring efforts have created 250,000 direct U.S. jobs plus nearly one million ancillary jobs, with plans to continue growing and utilizing "Pathways" to ensure employees' next positions exceed entry-level status.
- Jeff Green predicts that debt-financed infrastructure investment during historically low interest rates will provide hope for a generation of Americans, while the host expects that adopting such infrastructure and investment recommendations will stimulate growth and prevent social instability.
- Beth Ann Bovino acknowledges that while minimum wage hikes will likely have a stimulative economic effect, she explicitly declines to predict they will result in zero net costs, and references the Carter administration's late 1970s wage increases as a catalyst for gas station automation.
- Arthur Brooks defines "truly full employment" as an unemployment rate of approximately 4% and proposes that if the private sector fails to achieve this, the government should act as a job creator of last resort.
- Jared Bernstein highlights that college attendance for children from low-income neighborhoods reduces the probability of remaining in the bottom 20% of earners from 45% to 15%, and notes that 66% of U.S. visas are family-based rather than employment-based.
- Beth Ann Bovino observes that middle-class incomes grew by 13% to 14% from the late 1970s to the present despite productivity doubling, and she predicts that increased labor costs will likely lead to further automation similar to past trends.