Jim Riccio, Director of MDRC’s Low-Wage Workers and Communities Policy Area, has contributed a chapter to The Squeezed Middle: The Pressure on Ordinary Workers in America and Britain, edited by Sophia Parker and published by The Policy Press. 

As wages stagnate but living costs keep rising, the pressure on working people grows more intense. The issue of living standards has become one of the most urgent challenges for politicians in both Britain and America. The Squeezed Middle brings together experts from both sides of the Atlantic to ask what the UK can learn from the US. American workers have not benefited from growth for an entire generation; the average American worker earned no more in 2009 than in 1975. Now British workers are undergoing a similar experience. No longer can they assume that when the economy grows their wages will grow with it. This collection brings together leading economic and policy thinkers to analyse the impact of different policies on those with low to middle incomes. 

Riccio’s chapter, “New Evidence and New Directions for Promoting Labour Market Advancement for Low and Modest Earners,” reviews the latest research about efforts to help low-wage workers advance up the career ladder, including two large-scale evaluations MDRC conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom. He also describes new policy innovations currently being tested.