“This volume offers ideas on how we can rewrite the rules of the economy to make the labor market more competitive and prevent the anticompetitive practices that employers have systematically used to increase their market power. This volume also provides a rich policy agenda for how to redress these imbalances—an essential component in protecting our democracy.”
—Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate and professor, Columbia University
For decades, falling competition in the U.S. labor market has weakened wage growth and diminished job quality. While sluggish productivity growth, rising globalization, and declining union representation are traditionally cited as factors for this historic imbalance in economic power, diminished labor market competition has had an increasingly detrimental impact on American workers.
Inequality and the Labor Market frames the legal and economic consequences of this imbalance and presents a series of urgently needed reforms for both labor and antitrust laws to improve outcomes for American workers. These include higher wages, safer workplaces, increased ability to report labor violations, greater mobility, more opportunities for workers to build power, and overall better labor protections.
Sharon Block is the former executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, where she also teaches. Before coming to Harvard, she served eight years in the Obama administration in senior positions at the Department of Labor, the National Labor Relations Board, and the White House. Prior to the Obama administration, she served as Senior Labor and Employment Counsel for Senator Edward Kennedy on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. She currently serves as the Associate Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget.
Benjamin H. Harris is a counselor to the U.S. Treasury Secretary. He previously served as the chief economist with Results for America, the executive director of the Kellogg Public-Private Initiative at the Kellogg School of Management, and chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden in the Obama White House.