Wildfire is investing in collaborative strategies that ensure both businesses and employees can thrive in our economy. In addition to engaging in policy solutions at the state and local level, Wildfire is working directly with businesses to advance a quality jobs strategy that actively invests in employees to ignite far reaching returns for everyone in Arizona.
Raise Arizona
Is an initiative working to increase the number of employers in Arizona voluntarily paying a living wage and to provide them exposure to consumers who support their efforts. Learn more about Raise Arizona and how you or your business can get involved at raisearizona.org.
The Wildfire Toolkit
Wildfire is directly engaging Arizona’s employers to educate them on strategies to eliminate race, gender, and ability wage gaps. Download Wildfire’s toolkit to learn more about the issue and steps you can take today.
White Men Out-earn Black and Hispanic Men and All Groups of Women
Median hourly earnings as a percent of white men’s earnings
Note: Estimate are for all civilian, non-institutionalized, full- or part-time workers ages 16 and older with positive earnings. Self-employed workers are excluded. Hispanics are of any race. Whites, blacks and Asians include only non-Hispanics. Asians include Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. Source: Pew Research Center tabulations of Current Population Survey Data.
50% of the US workforce is in a job that pays under $15 an hour.
Annually, it is estimated that the U.S. loses $78 to $87 billion due to lost output from people with criminal records. The U.S. incarcerates more of its citizens than any other country on earth. And while African Americans and Hispanics make up 32% of the overall population, they compromise 56% of those incarcerated in the U.S.
Low-Income Workers
When compared to high-income workers, low-income workers are
Wage Stagnation
Middle-class wages are stagnant—Middle-wage workers’ hourly wage is up 6% since 1979, low-wage workers’ wages are down 5%, while those with very high wages saw a 41% increase.
Cumulative change in real hourly wages of all workers, by wage percentile*, 1979-2013
*Low wage is 10th percentile, middle wage is 50th percentile, ver high wage is 95th percentile. Source: EPI analysis of Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation group microdata. Reproduced from Figure F in “Why America’s Workers Need Foster Wage Growth—And What We Can Do About It”.
