 We are in a wages moment, a time when it is universally agreed that wage growth for nearly all workers, both white collar and blue collar, high school educated and college educated, has been inadequate. This is the predictable result of policies that have been implemented over the last four decades, and consequently, we can reverse these trends with new and bold policies. Unfortunately, too many people believe that the wage suppression we have lived with is the inevitable consequence of ongoing changes beyond our control. It is critically important that the policy agenda you put forward highlights the many ways that we can support larger paychecks for the vast majority, not only low wage workers, but also for middle wage workers. This is the path to shared prosperity and expanded middle class reduced poverty and vibrant social mobility. It is common sense that wages are key since for most families they don't receive much income from owning things. They get to consume based on what kind of paychecks they bring home. And we know what's happened with wages. I won't belabor the facts. We know that way too much of them have gone to the top 1%, whose wages grew 150% over the last three decades or so. We know that a typical worker saw his or her pay rise around 9%, including benefits, while productivity grew about 72%. What that means is that there has been a substantial growth of income, of wealth, and output. And that our problem is not that the economy didn't grow, it's that we have not had policies that ensured that as the economy grew, most people benefited. So what were the rules? How were the rules rigged to suppress wages? We didn't have macroeconomic policy that assured us of full employment that would allow everyone a job and that would assure wage growth occurred. We eroded labor standards in their enforcement, most prominently people are familiar with the minimum wage, but many other things happened including millions of wages, misclassified as independent contractors, and wage theft for which workers lose three times as much each year as the country suffers from robberies. New business practices such as subcontracting and temporary employment that has been used to establish lower wages. An assault on collective bargaining that was the single largest factor that limited the wage growth, at least for middle wage men. And globalization under terms that hollowed out manufacturing and undercut non-college educated wages across the board. How can we change that? Let me go over the ways. And what I want to emphasize is that many of the policies that you have been discussing, have been discussing the campaign, can be synthesized around a story for wage growth. First, jobs. Monetary policy that allows a full recovery. Infrastructure, clean energy, housing, public investments that are going to create jobs. Public service employment that makes sure that we target jobs to areas of high employment that won't necessarily be benefiting from recovery unless we have such targeted programs. Okay, two, we need to rebuild labor standards. Most prominently people familiar with the minimum wage. We can get to 12 or 12 and a half by 2020 and eventually get to 15. We have to do that. That will ultimately raise wages for the bottom third of workers. We have to rebuild our collective bargaining system. This is essential for making sure that wage growth reaches middle wage workers. I think it's also essential for our democracy so that working people have a seat at the table. I urge you not to just tinker with existing law, but to explore wholesale changes that will really truly establish a new collective bargaining system. Next, we talked about immigration reform, but too few people acknowledge that making undocumented workers citizens raises wages. Non-documented workers are exploitable and are exploited. They earn anywhere from 12 to 20% less than citizens. Making them citizens will raise their wages and help people who work in similar fields of work. We need to end forced arbitration where workers are not able, because they sign something when they get a job, to make a class action suit to protect themselves against gender, age, race discrimination, or the violations of wage and hours. And we need to modernize our labor standards. We're busy, unfortunately, defending those that were implemented in the New Deal, but we need sick leave, we need paid family leave, we need childcare that helps people balance work and family. We also need to make sure that we end race and gender inequities and two more things. We have to address the top 1%. The reason we have to address the top 1% meaning we have to find ways to limit their ability to skim off the top, because that's money that otherwise would go to the vast majority. We can do that. That is about the financial sector and that is about exorbitant executive pay, and there are policies that can deal with that. And last, I want to urge you not to pursue tax cuts as a way to help people. A one-time tax cut cannot address ongoing wage stagnation. Paychecks have shrunk not from what the government has taken out, but it's what employers have failed to put in. And that has to be the focus. Thank you very much. Congressman Nelson. Thanks for your testimony. Dr. Michelle, really appreciate it. You know, people would love to be in a union, but they absolutely need a job. And so when they get threatened or fired because they're trying to engage in union activity, that really puts a chill on everybody who's thinking about joining the drive to certify the union. But at the same time, while I want to commend the people at the National Labor Relations Board, I know they work hard every day. They do their best. For a lot of workers thinking about joining a union drive, the relief that they would get, at least I've been told from people I've talked to, is slow and not adequate. Do you agree with that? Do you see that? And do you think that strengthening and speeding up the justice for a worker who's fired or retaliated against for-union activity as part of this effort to raise wages? I think what's criminal is what legally employers can do as well as what they actually do illegally. And I think the penalties are weak to non-existent. And that's the low-hanging fruit. There's a wages act that's been introduced. We should pursue that. But I want to go further. I think we have to explore issues that people have not been talking about. Call it occupational bargaining, sectoral bargaining, whereas the rights where workers in a whole sector or occupation meet with their employers as a whole. And so the right to collective bargaining is not just subject to whether you can win some small particular unit and hold on to that as employers do everything they can to erode your rights. They do this in other countries. We have to explore it here. Too many people tell me that collective bargaining is outmoded. I don't think collective bargaining is outmoded. I think our particular legal structure for facilitating collective bargaining is outmoded. And I think we have to think new, big, and bold. Ms. Tandon. I actually wanted to build on Congressman Ellison's points and really push on this last point, which is I think we all recognize the importance of a minimum wage increase. But when we're dealing with so many years of wage stagnation, I mean, it's really years and years of wage stagnation, it's folks who are way above the minimum wage who are facing wage stagnation as well. And so what are innovative ideas to create more work or power throughout the economic system? I mean, the bottom 60% are really struggling. So what do we do there? You mentioned sectoral bargaining. I know Germany has workers on their boards. Are there innovative ideas that can really address the challenge we have, which is that workers just have too little power to bargain for wages to go up or to share in the productivity increases we've seen over the last 15 years? Well, thank you for your question. My colleague from another think tank. Well, you know, I think it is important. The minimum wage is no small deal because it's going to... Absolutely, absolutely. I know you didn't say that, but it would affect at least a third to 40% of workers, which is only a metric for showing how far we have sunk. Yes. Now, those workers are low wage workers, but they live in low and middle income households. So this is something that will help middle income households. The Conservatives say that the minimum wage is not targeted, and what they really mean is they don't really care about a woman getting a higher wage because she happens to live with someone who also works and is middle class. But we do have to reach the middle class. One of the things that they illustrate, they hope people profile, is the new overtime rules that were specifically helping workers, salaried workers who earn between $23,600 and $47,000. That's the definition of middle class. And those workers lost their overtime privileges since 1975, basically. Restoring them allows them higher wages and more time with their family, more jobs for America. But I think, you know, we need to have a conversation about occupation and sexual bargaining. Yes. And I'm saying this, it's somewhat that some of my friends are not talking about this yet because I think it's tempting to try to tinker with the existing system. I have lost faith in the existing system, and I want to really wholly revamp it. And I want to talk here about solutions at the scale of the problem, not necessarily what I'm thinking it passed in the first 90 days. Mr. West, Dr. West. Thank you so very much for your very illuminating analysis. But it strikes me, though, we have waved stagnation for four decades, with a hundred and fifty percent increase at the top. It sounds like a war on working people. Is that too strong a language? Is it by design or is it by consequence and effect? It is absolutely. This is alarming. This is a crisis, and it's an economic catastrophe for many of our precious poor and working people. Now, if it is, then what kinds of alarmist responses do we have? Democratic, of course, constitutionally based. But is that too strong a language? How would you respond? I recall back in the late 1970s when Doug Fraser was the president of the United Order Workers, at that point said that we were having a one-sided class war. Warren Buffett has made the same comment in the last 10 years. I think we need policies that focus on how are we going to raise wages, and therefore the incomes of the bottom 90 percent, that may involve measures like innovation and getting economic growth. But we cannot approach economics without being very conscious to make sure there are mechanisms to make sure that growth reaches everybody. This requires changes that involve how our politics work, the voter suppression, the money in politics is a necessary prerequisite for making the legislative changes, I think. So we also have to be bold and call out the forces at play that allow the top 1 percent to skim income for themselves and to prevent regular workers from getting a good deal on the job. So let me just describe a regular worker situation. If she's not happy with her deal from her boss, what are her options? Can she readily go get another job? Well, no. For the most part, that's not available. Are jobs going to be quality jobs? No. Our job quality has actually been eroding. Can she readily go to her peers and form a collective bargaining unit and be able to negotiate? No, that's not as available as it used to. If she's been discriminated against by her pay relative to other workers' pay, can she go to court and get a remedy? The answer is no. She's probably signed a forced arbitration agreement that doesn't allow her to do that. Government labor standards, the minimum wage and other protections high enough to allow her to support her family. The answer is no. So we have systematically undercut the ability of people to do for themselves. We have to re-establish a policy regime that is supportive of wages, and it's not going to happen overnight, but it has to happen in a way that you fully announce to the American people that we can do it and tell the narrative about how that can happen. Thank you very much. Thank you for testifying. Thank you.