On Labor Day, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released its 2004 "State of Working America" report, showing that performance of the economy throughout the recovery has been unbalanced. "After almost three years of recovery, our job market is still too weak to broadly distribute the benefits of the growing economy," it found. "Unemployment is essentially unchanged, job growth has stalled, and real wages have started to fall behind inflation."

The annual study measures a range of economic indicators, including: employment, unemployment and underemployment; wages and job quality; and poverty, income, and wealth. An excerpt from the study, as well as many interesting facts sheets, are at EPI's The State of Working America