John is a senior research fellow at CEPR, where he was a senior economist between 2005 and 2015. He later worked as the Research Director at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and the Vice President of the Economic Policy Institute.
He has published peer-reviewed research on a range of labor market issues including unemployment, wage inequality, the minimum wage, unionization, immigration, technology, racial inequality, mass incarceration, and other topics. His research has been cited widely in the media including The Economist, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
His popular writing has appeared in The American Prospect, Boston Review, BusinessWeek.com, Challenge, Democracy, Dissent, The Guardian, The International Herald Tribune, Salon, The Washington Post, and other publications. Schmitt co-authored three editions of The State of Working America and co-edited Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World (Russell Sage Foundation, 2010).
From 1999 through 2015, he was a regular visiting professor in public policy at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. In the 1990s, he was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador, and later worked as an information officer for the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL).
He has a Ph.D. and an M.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics and an A.B. in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University.
All from John Schmitt
Education and Good Jobs: Black vs White Workers
In a recent report, we demonstrated that despite large increases over the last three decades in educational attainment, black workers are less likely to be in a good job than they were three decades ago. In this post, we compare outcomes over the same per
Has Education Paid Off for Black Workers?
In a recent report, John Schmitt and I demonstrated that despite large increases over the last three decades in educational attainment, black workers are less likely to be in a “good job” than they were three decades ago. We define a good job as one with
Low-wage Workers: Smarter, Older and Underpaid
As we documented in an earlier post, the current value of the minimum wage is too low by every available historical benchmark. But, given the age and educational upgrading of the average low-wage worker over the last three decades, the level of the minimu
Some States Correcting for Federal Inaction on Tipped Workers
While four years have passed since the last increase in the federal minimum wage (July 24, 2009), tipped workers (for example, restaurant servers, hair stylists, manicurists, car washers and casino workers) are looking at 21 years at the same mandated fed
The Minimum Wage Is Not What It Used To Be
July 24th will mark four years since the last increase in the federal minimum wage. By the most commonly used benchmarks – inflation, average wages and average productivity – the current $7.25-an-hour rate is well below the peak it hit five decades ago. A
Minimum Wage: States Pick Up Where the Federal Government Falters
Next week marks four years since the last time that there was an increase in the federal minimum wage (currently $7.25 per hour). While we have argued here, here and here that the federal minimum-wage rate is too low, 19* states have taken matters into th
Minimum Wage: Catching up to Productivity
John SchmittDemocracy, June 12, 2013
No-Vacation Nation Revisited
May 2013, Rebecca Ray, Milla Sanes, and John Schmitt
Carry On, Wayward Sons
I got an email yesterday from Elaine Kamarck, resident scholar at Third Way. We don’t know each other, but she wanted to let me know about a new Third Way study: Wayward Sons: The Emerging Gender Gap in Labor Markets and Education (pdf). I had already rea