The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has released important research about the economy in the past few weeks. Here's a look at some of the key pieces it uncovered about the U.S. economy.

Today’s U.S. Census Bureau figures provide further evidence that America’s working families have experienced a “lost decade” of falling incomes from 2000 to 2012.

• From 2000 to 2012, median income for non-elderly households fell $7,490, or 11.6%.
• Median income for African American households fell $5,838, or 14.8%.
• Median income for Hispanic households fell $5,219, or 11.8%.
• From 1973 to 2012, median earnings for men working full-time fell from $51,668 to $49,398.

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has released important research about the economy in the past few weeks. Here's a look at some of the key pieces it uncovered about the U.S. economy.

Today, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) launched an online wage calculator that lets people see what their wages should be if based on increases in worker productivity and if most companies didn't fail to adequately compensate workers for those gains. For example, if you are a worker who makes $40,000 a year and you enter that salary into the calculator, it tells you that you should be making $62,529 if your wages had kept up with productivity increases.

Click here to get to the calculator. 

As we approach Labor Day, the AFL-CIO has released a new report, The Elusive American Dream: Lower Wages, High Unemployment and an Uncertain Retirement for Latinos. The report compiles economic data from recent Economic Policy Institute (EPI) studies that show Latinos face higher unemployment and underemployment rates, are paid lower wages and have less financial security as seniors.

A new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows that wages for the vast majority of America's working families have stagnated or declined over the past decade and that raising wages is the key challenge facing the country in terms of growing the economy and recovering from the Great Recession. In A Decade of Flat Wages: The Key Barrier to Shared Prosperity and a Rising Middle Class, authors Lawrence Mishel and Heidi Shierholz note that while productivity and corporate profits are on the rise, that prosperity is not being shared with workers. They also point out that the only notable growth in wages is concentrated on corporate executives and in the finance sector, meaning the bulk of wage growth has gone to the upper 1% of the workforce. 

Many of us and our families have felt the pinch of stagnant wages during the past several years, and a new study shows that while real wages (adjusted for inflation) fell by 2.8% across the board between 2009 and 2012, low- and middle-wage workers—especially women—took the brunt of the hit.  

CEOs Recovering Well, Workers Not So Much originally appeared on the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) blog. 

Escalating CEO compensation is a major contributor to income inequality. Along with financial sector pay, growing CEO compensation has helped more than double the income share of the top 1 percent over the past three decades. Moreover, the fact that CEO pay has risen so quickly since the end of the Great Recession is an indicator that the top 1 percent is doing far better than ordinary Americans in the recovery.

In case you missed it, The New York Times published two articles last weekend that captured the dramatic disparity between workers’ wages and executive pay at large corporations across the country. While median working family incomes fell last year, median CEO and executive compensation skyrocketed and lucrative executive retirement packages continued to expand. These lucrative plans, known as “Golden Parachutes,” have increased despite years of public outcry as companies have chipped away at workers’ pensions and retirement plans. At the same time, a coalition of CEOs and corporations are advocating cuts to earned Social Security and Medicare benefits as they rake in lavish retirement and bonus packages.

The Economic Policy Institute recently launched Inequality.is, designed to help people understand and take action to fight the problem with growing inequality in the United States and to learn about the devastating effects this problem has on working families. The site, which is beautifully animated, contains a wealth of easy-to-understand information that helps people get a handle on the issue and explain it to their friends, family and co-workers.