Public Policy Archives - The ED Advisor

August 25, 2020August 25, 2020

U.S. Kitchen Incubators: An Appetite for Food-Based Entrepreneurship

Economic development organizations seeking to create a more dynamic, entrepreneurial, and inclusive economy would be wise to pay attention to the U.S. kitchen incubator industry.

U.S. kitchen incubators — sometimes characterized as commercially-licensed kitchens, shared-use kitchens, commissary kitchens, kitchen accelerators, or ghost kitchens — are a unique type of culinary micro-enterprise. The terms are used interchangeably, but there are important distinctions between them. The primary distinguishing feature is the degree to which supportive services are provided to wholesale, retail, and catering food entrepreneurs. Shared-use kitchens offer minimal or no support; incubators provide expertise to new and early-stage startups; whereas accelerators look to scale up operations and achieve significant growth for established, investible startups (American Communities Trust, Econsult Solutions, Urbane Development, 2016).

These culinary production facilities are not to be confused with community kitchens, which serve neighborhood stakeholders and institutions, such as St. Mary’s Food Bank Community Kitchen and Local First Arizona Community Kitchen in Phoenix.

Industry surveys indicate that the number of U.S. kitchen incubators grew from no less than 135 in 2013 to more than 200 in 2016, expanding to 600+ across the 48 contiguous states and District of Columbia in 2019 (Econsult Solutions, Urbane Development, The Food Corridor, Catharine Street Consulting, 2020). They operate in urban (52 percent), suburban (27 percent), and rural (21 percent) areas, but are heavily concentrated near large cities (Econsult Solutions et al., 2020). Their popularity stems from the “locavore movement” that connects food producers and consumers within the same geographic region, the creation of food-based makerspace that focuses on handmade products, and a growing recognition that entrepreneurship provides an opportunistic pathway to economic success (The Food Corridor, 2020).

Culinary Entrepreneurship

The relationship between U.S. kitchen incubators, culinary entrepreneurs — chefs, caterers, farmers market and festival vendors, food truck proprietors, bakers, and specialty food producers — and the broader concept of small business entrepreneurship, is powerful.

National Trends

Let’s take a look at the broader picture.

According to the Kauffman Foundation, the rate of new entrepreneurs — or the number of non-business owners that start a new enterprise each month — has fluctuated between 0.27 and 0.34 percent of the adult population during the past two and a half decades. Expressed differently, roughly 300 out of 100,000 adults create a new business.

The rate of new entrepreneurs is highest among Latinos, who have consistently outpaced other races and ethnicities over time. New entrepreneurs who are Asian and White compete closely for second and third position. Comparatively, the rate is slightly lower among African-Americans (see chart below).

Richard Mulligan | The ED Advisor
Source: *Kauffman Indicators of Entrepreneurship, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation*, 2020

Overall, the rate of minority entrepreneurs has increased; while the rate of entrepreneurship among immigrants is significantly higher than for the native-born (see chart below).

This is important because the gap in wealth between immigrants and native-born citizens decreases considerably through business ownership.

Those with the least education have proven themselves to be more prolific when it comes to entrepreneurship in comparison to other groups with higher education attainment levels (see chart below).

Put together, early-stage entrepreneurship is fertile ground for a wide range of ethnic and racial groups looking to grow a business. This is particularly true for U.S. kitchen incubators, where on average, 52 percent of tenants are women and 30 percent are minorities. The diversity of food entrepreneurs is even more prominent in larger metropolitan areas like New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago (Econsult Solutions, Urbane Development, The Food Corridor, Catharine Street Consulting, 2020).

U.S. kitchen incubators provide food entrepreneurs with a low-risk opportunity to access their own food production equipment and preparation space — a challenge for startups that is otherwise cost prohibitive. At the same time, entrepreneurs receive training, mentoring, and the opportunity to collaborate with a large network of food companies, while working to refine their business model.

From a “big picture” perspective, kitchen incubators serve as a catalyst for inclusive and equitable economic development.

Business Models

Similar to their tenants, kitchen incubators operate under a diverse set of business models, operating as stand-alone facilities or accessories to markets, community centers, and housing projects, or cloud kitchens. Facility goals are just as diverse, striving to fulfill owner-operated, corporate, non-profit, government, and university-sponsored missions. They can be self-funded, or receive financial support in the form of grants, debt-financing, corporate sponsorship, or investor seed funding. Some are run by culinary entrepreneurs who started their own business and decided to capitalize on the opportunity to lease space and supplement their cash flow. Other facilities are more intentional about supporting entrepreneurs, while providing a living income for their founders. Hence, there is no “standard” kitchen model that can be applied to a region’s culinary ecosystem (Colpaart, 2018).

A key point to remember is that kitchen incubators — like their food business tenants — are startup businesses that need to perform their own due diligence in terms of market research, business model development, financial planning, and marketing. In this regard, it is critically important to customize operations to serve their local communities.

Food Innovation Districts

On a state and regional level, U.S. kitchen incubators are taking root in food innovation districts. A food innovation district is defined as “a geographic concentration of food-oriented businesses, services and community activities that local governments support through planning and economic development initiatives in order to promote a positive business environment, spur regional food system development and increase access to local food,” according to Patty Cantrell of Regional Food Systems Solutions, LLC.

Michigan is a national leader in the establishment of food innovation districts — an outgrowth of the Michigan Good Food Charter, a statewide policy platform that envisions sourcing 20 percent of Michigan’s from Michigan food markets and production, providing 80 percent of the population with access to locally-grown, healthy foods. Several districts have already taken hold in the Eastside Neighborhood, Lansing; Eastern Market, Detroit; Grand Traverse Regional Market, Traverse City; Marquette Food Co-op and Hub, and; Grand Rapids Downtown Market, Grand Rapids.

Food Innovation Districts: An Economic Gardening Tool is designed to help other government and community leaders seize opportunities with local and regional food. Outlined is the process and tools used to create districts, which can be applied elsewhere in the nation. The districts are being put to practical use by fostering regional food hubs, kitchen incubators, farm-to-table retail and restaurants, farmers markets, food festivals, nutrition and cooking education, healthy food assistance, urban agriculture production, and community kitchens.

Culinary Incubator and The Kitchen Door have compiled lists of more than 1,000 kitchens from around the country. Select examples of incubator facilities identified in their respective databases for Greater Phoenix are shown below*:

Chef’s Shared Kitchen	Mesa, AZ
Commissary and Catering Kitchen	Tempe, AZ
Freedom Kitchen	Scottsdale, AZ
NT Kitchen	Phoenix, AZ
Phoenix Commercial Kitchen	Phoenix, AZ

Source: CulinaryIncubators.com

National best practices for kitchen incubators include*:

Commonwealth Kitchen	Boston, MA
Hot Bread Kitchen	Tempe, AZ
Pacific Gateway Center Culinary Business Incubator	Phoenix, AZ

Source: American Communities Trust, 2016

Phoenix 2025 Food Action Plan

As part of the City of Phoenix General Plan, residents approved a Healthy Food System goal to promote the growth of a healthy, affordable, secure and sustainable food system that makes healthy food available to all Phoenix residents (2015). The 2050 Environmental Sustainability Goals include a Local Food System Goal to maintain a healthy, sustainable, equitable, and thriving local food system (2016).

Incorporated in the Action Plan is a strategy to create a food business rental incubator in the South Central Avenue Corridor, possibly as a food hall. Links to The Shared Kitchen Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Planning, Launching, and Managing a Shared-Use Commercial Kitchen, the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture’s Commercial Kitchen Guide, and CulinaryIncubator.com interactive mapping tool are listed as resources under the “Commercial Kitchen” category.

Other resources are identified for community gardens, farm-to-school, farmers markets, food co-ops, food hubs, food waste, healthy living, and urban agriculture.

Included in the Appendix is the South Phoenix Food Action Plan, which taps into the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Local Foods, Local Places Program, with management and technical assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Center for Disease Control and Protection (CDC), and Delta Regional Authority (DRA).

Meanwhile, a development proposal to create a “food innovation center” has surfaced in West Phoenix. Proponents hope to convert an old Kmart building into a center that serves nontraditional food businesses (e.g., food trucks, catering firms, and food delivery businesses). A career training center is also envisioned for the 112,000-square-foot building. Maricopa Community Colleges is conducting a feasibility study for Phoenix’ Community and Economic Development Department.

All of this points to the growing and evolving nature of kitchen incubators, their ability to provide food entrepreneurs with an education in running a business, and a means to provide food industry jobs and education opportunities for those looking to climb the economic ladder.

Editor’s Note: *These are not meant to be all-inclusive lists, but rather a partial sample of kitchen incubator facilities.

July 4, 2020January 14, 2021

Minimum Wage, Minimum Growth

Photo by Zhanjiang Chen on Unsplash

Raising the minimum wage leads to slower job and wage growth for younger, low-wage workers

Before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, a host of cities, counties, and states moved to raise the minimum wage. Proponents argued that a higher minimum wage was needed to provide workers with enough income to afford a living wage — the amount required to maintain a normal standard of living. They viewed an increase in the minimum wage as an economic stimulus of sorts, placing more disposable income in the hands of low-income earners. Their hope is that a wage increase would help to lower employee turnover and reduce training costs. Critics claim that a higher minimum wage results in lower employment and reduced hours for existing employees. They believe an increased minimum wage creates a powerful incentive for large employers to automate jobs (witness the kiosks at McDonald’s), while driving companies with low profit margins out of business. Furthermore, they point to a lack of evidence that minimum wages are effective at reducing overall poverty rates or poverty rates among workers.

Amidst this debate, the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, a private, not-for-profit, non-partisan, independent research organization that has studied policy-related issues of employment and unemployment since 1945, states that recent working papers indicate “the pass-through effect of minimum wage increases on prices is smaller than previously thought; small raises in the minimum wage lead to slower wage growth for low-wage workers; and that the minimum wage reduces job growth over a period of several years with the effects being strongest for younger workers and for those in industries with a higher proportion of low-wage workers.”

Local and State Minimum Wage Ordinances

Most initiatives to raise the minimum wage are at the local and state level.

Leading the charge is Seattle at $16 per hour for large employers and $15 per hour for small companies. Seattle is joined by Montgomery County, Maryland; New York City; and Washington, D. C., which have established a minimum wage of $15 per hour (effective January 1, 2020). The University of California-Berkeley Labor Center’s Inventory of U.S. City and County Minimum Wage Ordinances reveals that local governments with minimum wage ordinances are highly concentrated in eight blue states — California (36), New Mexico (5), Illinois (2), Maine (2), Maryland (2), Minnesota (2), Colorado (1), Washington (1) — and the District of Columbia.

The Economic Policy Institute Minimum Wage Tracker indicates that 27 states and the District of Columbia have changed their minimum wage law since 2014 (along with their current minimum wage and sub-minimum tipped wage: Alaska ($10.19/$10.19), Arizona ($12.00/$9.00), Arkansas ($10.00/$2.63), California ($13.00/$13.00), Colorado ($12.00/$8.98), Connecticut ($11.00/$6.38), Delaware ($9.25/$2.23), Hawaii ($10.10/$10.10), Illinois ($10.00/$6.00), Maine ($12.00/$6.00), Maryland ($11.00/$3.63), Massachusetts ($12.75/$4.95), Michigan ($9.65/$3.67), Minnesota ($10.00/$10.00), Missouri ($9.45/$4.73), Nebraska ($9.00/$2.13), Nevada ($9.00/$9.00), New Jersey ($11.00/$3.13), New Mexico ($9.00/$2.35), New York ($11.80/$7.85), Oregon ($12.00/$12.00), Rhode Island ($10.50/$3.89), South Dakota ($9.30/$4.65), Vermont ($10.96/$5.48), Washington ($13.50/$13.50), Washington, D. C. ($15.00/$5.00), and West Virginia ($8.75/$2.63).

Seven states have no minimum wage law or have in place a minimum wage below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour — Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wyoming. The federal minimum wage applies in all of these states.

Cost of living plays an important role in creating industry and region differentials in minimum wage rates. For example, Oregon’s minimum wage law establishes a separate minimum wage rate for the Portland Urban Growth Boundary area and designated non-urban counties. New York law establishes separate minimum wage rates for New York City, suburban counties, and the rest of the state. Simultaneously, New York’s minimum wage law allows for variations by industry. The fast-food industry started at $10.50 in New York City and $9.75 for the rest of the state, both gradually rising to $15 per hour over a period of several years.

Another common feature is indexing for inflation, which calls for making annual adjustments in the minimum wage based on changes in the Consumer Price Index (states are measured against the national average, which is set at 100). This occurs in eighteen different states and the District of Columbia.

Richard Mulligan | The ED Advisor
Source: World Population Review, 2020

This hodge-podge of higher minimum wages is a reflection of several factors, not least of which are cost of living and political philosophy. It is no coincidence that the highest minimum wages are most often found in jurisdictions with the highest costs for housing, food, healthcare, and other expenses (see chart above). Nor is it a coincidence that the most expensive jurisdictions to live in are Democratic strongholds.

National Minimum Wage

Several groups advocate for raising the national minimum wage to $15 per hour — Campaign for America’s Future, Economic Policy Institute, FairShare, Interfaith Worker Justice, Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign, National Employment Law Project, Partnership for Working Families, Reclaim the American Dream, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, and United for a Fair Economy. These proponents are primarily concerned about providing a living wage for workers, reducing poverty, and wage inequality.

Opposing their efforts are major business organizations such as the National Association of Manufacturers, National Federation of Independent Business, National Restaurant Association, National Retail Federation, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They argue that a national minimum wage of $15 per hour leads to increased labor costs and tough choices, causing employers to reduce jobs, reduce hours, or reduce benefits.

Lost in our political discourse are the implications of a one-size-fits all approach that creates unintended consequences for the U.S. and its tapestry of economically diverse states. It’s one thing to implement a $15 minimum wage for low-wage workers in Hawaii, which has a cost of living index of 192.9; another thing entirely to implement a $15 minimum wage in Mississippi, where the cost of living index is 86.1* The impact on lower cost of living states, their industries, and their employees, is broader and far more disruptive.

Weighing in on the discussion is the Congressional Budget Office, which estimates that raising the minimum wage to $15 from its current $7.25 could cost 1.3 million jobs, while increasing wages for 17 million workers.

Despite the state and region differentials in minimum wage, and the prospect of permanent job loss, the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed H. R. 582 – Raise the Wage Act to boost the national minimum wage to $15 per hour in a recorded vote of 231-199. The bill also eliminates the separate minimum wage requirements for disabled, tipped and newly-hired employees (under 20 years of age), bringing them into line with regular employees over a 7-year period. Political observers believe the Senate is unlikely to take up the bill, and President Trump has indicated he’s prepared to veto the legislation.

Minimum wage increases generate mixed outcomes. A higher minimum wage increases worker purchasing power and stimulates consumer demand. On the flip side, a higher minimum wage discourages employers from hiring low-skill, low-wage workers, which leads to slower wage growth — particularly for younger workers — and creates an incentive to replace human labor with automation technology. To a large extent, the gains and losses attributed to a higher minimum wage offset one another.

Perhaps minimum wage federalism offers a better answer.

Why Federalism Matters opens with this statement:

“What do we want from federalism?” asked the late Martin Diamond in a famous essay written thirty years ago. His answer was that federalism — a political system that permits a large measure of regional self-rule — presumably gives the rulers and the ruled a “school of their citizenship,” “a preserver of their liberties,” and “a vehicle for flexible response to their problems. These features, broadly construed, are said to reduce conflict between diverse communities, even as a federated polity affords inter-jurisdictional competition that encourages innovations and constrains the overall growth of government” (The Brookings Institution, 2005).

Democrats and other proponents of a higher national minimum wage of $15 per hour are pushing for a level of forced uniformity that ignores the dramatic effects that a “cookie-cutter” minimum wage policy has on employers and workers in different states across the country. As such, state governments and municipalities should be given the flexibility to continue experimenting with their own minimum wage policies. This allows other jurisdictions to learn from their successes and failures.

As an added benefit, decentralizing the minimum wage issue enables the federal government to focus on more important fiscal obligations. For example, COVID-19 has pushed the 2020 National Deficit to $2.74 trillion through June. Second-tier financial issues, like the minimum wage, should be delegated to lower levels of government.

If reducing poverty is the desired policy outcome, there is compelling evidence that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a far more effective tool:

“Each one percent in a state supplement to the federal EITC reduces poverty rates by one percent. (It also provides an incentive to seek employment, since the credit can only be claimed on earned income)” (Economic Policies Institute, 2020).

Wouldn’t it be nice if the U.S. Congress chose to get the federal government’s fiscal house in order before attempting to dictate to the people about minimum wage policy? Wouldn’t it be nice if the U.S. Congress worked smarter, and not just harder?

*Editor’s Note: A worker earning $15 per hour in Honolulu, Hawaii is equivalent to earning $6 per hour in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, once allowances are made for the difference in cost of living.

June 6, 2020June 27, 2020

The Age-Old Problem

Photo: Getty Images

Age discrimination needs to be a bigger part of the workforce conversation

Amidst a strong economy — before “social distancing” became part of the American lexicon — employers painted a picture of having to scramble to lure applicants. Nearly 7 in 10 employers reported talent shortages, the worst level ever and a jump of 23 percent from the previous year. That’s more than three times higher than a decade ago.

Richard Mulligan | The ED Advisor *Source: ManpowerGroup, 2020*

While employers struggled to fill positions, ProPublica and the Urban Institute were busy analyzing research data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a premier source of multidisciplinary data that researchers use to address important questions about the challenges and opportunities of aging. They discovered that employers are hesitant to hire or retain older workers, potentially limiting their ability to stick around and retire on their own terms. Those unfortunate enough to be laid off have trouble finding a new job and experience long-term unemployment (ProPublica, 2020).

Between the time older workers enter the study and leave paid employment, 56 percent are displaced before they choose to retire. Only 1 in 10 of these workers ever recovers financially, earning much less than they did before their careers were disrupted. Years afterward, they’re still making up for ground lost and find themselves with fewer job prospects (ProPublica, 2020).

Richard Mulligan | The ED Advisor Source: ProPublica and the Urban Institute

An estimated 28 percent of stable, longtime employees sustain at least one damaging layoff by their employers between turning 50 and leaving work for retirement (ProPublica, 2020).

An additional 13 percent of workers who start their 50s in long-standing positions unexpectedly retire under circumstances that suggest they were encouraged to leave. They begin by telling survey takers they plan to keep working for many years, but, within a couple of years, they suddenly announce they’ve retired, amid a substantial drop in earnings and income (ProPublica, 2020).

So where’s the disconnect?

Age Discrimination

A primary culprit is the age-old problem of discrimination.

According to a 2018 American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) survey, 61 percent of older workers said they had either faced or seen age bias in the workplace; and 38 percent believe the practice is “very common.” A similar 2019 survey sponsored by Hiscox, a global specialist insurer, and conducted by Wakefield Research, found that 80 percent of older workers said their career trajectory had been impacted by their age, and 43 percent had left a company because they had experienced or witnessed age discrimination.

Feeding discriminatory hiring practices is the myth that older workers are somehow “washed up” professionally. Youth-obsessed hiring managers carry negative stereotypes about older workers, who are incorrectly viewed as being set in their ways, are less digitally savvy, are too highly compensated to retain, are complacent or unmotivated, and are difficult to manage.

To make matters worse, hundreds of the nation’s leading employers — Amazon, Cox Communications, Goldman Sachs, T-Mobile, and Facebook, to name a few — were found to have placed recruitment ads that excluded older age groups. They also shut out more experienced job applicants on Linkedin and other social recruting platforms. Such disclosures set off a wave of legal proceedings.

According to several civil rights groups — the American Civil Liberties Union, National Fair Housing Alliance, and Communications Workers of America, among others — some corporate recruitment ads were limited to “digital natives,” “recent college graduates,” or “people younger than 38.” Such hiring tactics are unfair, immoral, and illegal.

As part of a legal settlement with the plaintiffs, Facebook announced it would no longer allow businesses to buy targeted ads that potentially discriminate on the basis of race, gender, or age group. Anyone advertising home sales, employment opportunities, or credit offers — three areas where federal law prohibits discrimination in ads — no longer have the option of explicitly aiming ads at people on the basis of those characteristics. This policy change also applies to advertising on Instagram and Messenger, which are Facebook subsidiaries.

Despite this progress, age discrimination is an accepted bias that continues to pervade the hiring process in many organizations.

America’s Aging Demographics

Ironically, the discussion about age discrimination comes at a time when America’s population is growing older.

By 2060, the elderly share of the U.S. population (65 and older), which was 15.2 percent as recently as 2016, is expected to climb to 23.4 percent — an increase of 8.2 percent. Small percentage declines are predicted for the remaining cohorts: -2.1 percent (ages 45-64); -3.1 percent (ages 18-44); and -3.0 percent (under 18).

Compared to the younger population, the 65-plus crowd is the fastest growing segment of the American workforce.

Richard Mulligan | The ED Advisor Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020

Many people believe there is a strong correlation between America’s aging population and the Baby Boomer generation. That’s understandable, but inaccurate. Falling fertility rates and increases in life expectancy are the driving forces behind these demographic trends. This would have occurred even if the Baby Boom had never taken place. Baby Boomers have influenced the timing of America’s aging — at first, dampening its effect, but on the back end, accelerating it (Concord Coalition and Global Aging Institute, 2020).

Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act (POWADA)

In January, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 261-155 in favor of H.R. 1230, the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act (POWADA). Sponsored by Representatives Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), the legislation would restore protections lost in a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision that required age to be the sole reason an employer fired or changed a worker’s job in order for the worker to win an age discrimination case.

The legislative process now shifts to the U.S. Senate, where bipartisan companion legislation (S. 485) is sponsored by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Bob Casey (D-PA).

Our nation’s premier 50+ organizations — American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) — have thrown their support behind this legislation.

Unfortunately, age discrimination in the workplace is still disturbingly pervasive. Too many companies don’t seem to understand and appreciate the value of older employees. The positive qualities attributed to them — experience, perspective, adaptability, responsibility, commitment — can be tapped in many different ways. Measures such as the POWADA legislation are a step in the right direction toward eliminating discrimination and providing better access to quality jobs for older workers.

Countless workers in their 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond are actively engaged in their careers and enjoy working. Some are impacted by financial pressures caused by the COVID-19 lockdowns or Great Recession; some are caregivers for parents who live longer; others find meaning and self-fulfillment, or work to maintain their emotional well-being.

At 93, Tony Bennett, America’s iconic singer of traditional pop, big band, show tunes, and jazz music, has eleven concerts remaining on his 2020 tour. Franklin Graham, age 67, leads religious crusades and provides political commentary, all the while serving as CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse, an international Christian relief organization. At 85, David McCullough, one of our country’s most beloved historians, known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning biographies of Harry Truman and John Adams, published his 13th book, “The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West.” Nancy Pelosi, the 60th and 63rd Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, is 80 years old. Next year, the White House is slated to be occupied by one of two candidates who are working well beyond the age that most people start collecting Social Security. The incumbent, President Donald Trump, is nearly 74 years old. His challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, will turn 78 less than three weeks after the 2020 Presidential Election.

Like many of today’s older workers, these prominent citizens are skilled, proficient, and have a strong work ethic. This leads to a priceless gift — the joy of work.

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May 25, 2020June 27, 2020

The Unsung Progress of Women

Photo by Jungwoo Hong on Unsplash

The title on her Facebook page reads: “Sara Fried Fitness.” A static banner at the top of the page displays this header: “Sharing My Life * Monthly Online Fitness Groups * Ongoing Personal New Coach Mentorship.” Below is the tagline: “WIFE. Physical therapist turned SAHM to two boys. Fashion lover.” Website visitors are invited to text with questions about fitness, nutrition, or personal development. In a recent post, she laments the impact of a car accident that left her with a herniated disc. She refers to physical therapy as “a career I love…& I mean LOVE,” noting that “Coaching has given me choices. And while I’m going to stay in physical therapy as long as I can, it’s nice to know I have options.” Sara’s social media platform is a living testimony to the unsung progress of women.

Education Gender Gap

She also happens to be my daughter.

Sara is a graduate of Northern Arizona University (NAU), where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science. She, along with other female students of the millennial generation (and beyond), make up a majority of full- and part-time students attending U.S. colleges and universities. It’s been this way for quite some time. One has to take a step back in time — 1978 to be precise — to find enrollment records where male students outnumber their female counterparts in postsecondary education. The gender gap has widened considerably in the last four decades.

Richard Mulligan | The ED Advisor Source: National Center for Education Statistics

Click on graphic to enlarge

Education and Earnings

The strong correlation between education, income, and wealth is common knowledge. What is not well known is the extent to which women have leveraged their education to increase their paychecks. Reports show that increases in earnings have favored women over men for decades.

Richard Mulligan | The ED Advisor Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey

Click on graphic to enlarge

On the lower end of the education attainment spectrum, both men and women have experienced declines in weekly earnings. However, the decrease for women was much smaller than for men — a drop of 5 percent for women, compared to a decline of 26 percent for men.

Men with moderate education attainment levels have experienced a decline in weekly earnings of 18 and 11 percent, respectively. At the same time, women with equivalent levels of education increased their earnings by 3 and 5 percent.

Earnings for women with a bachelor’s degree or higher increased 34 percent, while earnings for men rose by 19 percent.

Herein lies the primary evidence for the unsung progress of women.

There is No Gender Wage Gap

“Equal Pay Day” was originated by the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) in 1996. The symbolic day serves as a public relations event to illustrate the pretense of a gender pay gap.

Democratic leaders — President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and others — have mimicked the NCPE’s contention that “In 2018, the median salaries for all full-time, year-round workers showed women earning 81.6 cents for every dollar men earned.” Outlets as politically diverse as HuffPost, Prager University and The Washington Post have explained this statistic and why it is misleading.

The gender gap statistic cites only the average difference between men and women, across all jobs, making no mention of occupation, position, education, number of hours worked, time taken off, or most significantly, the impact of personal life choices. A study by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), a well-known feminist organization, looked at male and female college graduates one year after graduation, and found that when you control for the differences in choice between men and women, the wage gap narrowed to only 6.6 percent.

Choice is the operative word.

Far fewer women choose to work in construction, production, transportation, and material moving occupations, preferring to enter career fields that pay less than those chosen by men. On the other hand, more women choose to occupy a higher percentage of professional and related occupations than men.

Click on graphic to enlarge

Impacting women’s decision-making processes is their personal preference for jobs with lower pay but greater benefits (time off to raise children), less physical risk, and more stable work hours.

Those asserting that the gender gap is a product of discrimination against women have invested in faulty logic. Using the same reasoning, young men are being discriminated against by young women. After all, twenty-something females have earnings that exceed men’s income by 10 percent or more, at least in certain disciplines. It must also be true that white men are being discriminated against by Asian-American men, who outearn their caucasian brethren by over 5 percent. Silly, right? Such flawed thinking is ridiculous at face value, which drives home the point.

Epilogue

If you compare men and women who hold the same job, with similar backgrounds and qualifications, the wage gap is virtually nonexistent. This runs counter to our political discourse, much of which is firmly entrenched in 1970s-era feminism. Claims that women are being paid less, and this is key — for doing the same work as men — doesn’t hold up to tighter scrutiny. Fact checkers have consistently rated such claims as “mostly false.” Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped politicians and well-intentioned advocates from portraying women as chronic and perpetual victims of discrimination.

This does a disservice to the millions of women who, like my daughter, earned a college degree, pursued their passion, built a career, and made tremendous economic strides. They are making personal career and life choices — often in collaboration with their husband, partner, or significant other — to achieve positive outcomes for themselves, their families, and the communities where they live.

Let’s celebrate the unsung progress of women.

Editor’s Note: A report from the U.S. Census Bureau, “The Changing Economics and Demographics of Young Adulthood: 1975 – 2016,” reveals that young women are pulling ahead of many young men in the workforce. At the same time, young men are falling to the bottom of the income ladder, a trend we will explore in a future blog post.

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