Sylvia Allegretto is a labor economist and co-director of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Allegretto received her Ph. D. in from the University of Colorado, Boulder and is a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC. Her research interests include long-term unemployment, family budgets, teacher pay, public employee compensation, low-wage labor markets, inequality, minimum wages and sub-minimum wages received by tipped workers. Sylvia closely tracks the economy with particular interest in typical workers and how they are faring. She is often called upon by media outlets to provide commentary and contextualize economic data and trends.

The Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics is a research center housed at the Institute for Researcher on Labor and Employment at the University of California, Berkeley. CWED was established in June 2007 to provide a focus for projects on wage and employment dynamics in contemporary labor markets. Current research topics include: minimum wage effects, tipped worker labor markets, transformation of retail labor markets, health insurance and health policy, and models of low-wage labor markets.