On Sunday, the Washington Post published an article on how the District’s economy has changed in the last four years. The story, which focused on how the recession has affected DC’s economic boom, noted that many residents still feel optimistic about DC’s future but that others continue to feel left out. The article quotes Ed Lazere, the DC Fiscal Policy Institute’s executive director:
“What’s going on is we have an economy that’s increasingly creating jobs only for people with advanced skills. People without those skills, even with a high school degree, are getting squeezed out of the market.”
DCFPI has written before about DC’s two economies — one that offers strong employment opportunities to those with the highest skills but leaves many others struggling to find even low-wage work.
A soon-to-be-released report from DCFPI will provide an update on what has happened to employment, unemployment, and wages in DC during the recent recession. Unfortunately, it shows that the situation has become much worse for those groups who have long been left out of DC’s economic booms.
The report shows that unemployment rates for Black and Latino residents increased much more than for White, non-Hispanic, residents in the recession. The report also shows that minimal wage gains have been made for those earning low- and moderate incomes while wages have soared for those on the upper end of the income scale.
Check back this week for the release of DCFPI’s full report on employment and wage trends in the District.
