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Income In The Off-Season: Household Adaptation To Yearly Work Interruptions, John Coglianese, Brendan M. Price
Income In The Off-Season: Household Adaptation To Yearly Work Interruptions, John Coglianese, Brendan M. Price
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Joblessness is highly seasonal. To analyze how households adapt to seasonal joblessness, we introduce a measure of seasonal work interruptions premised on the idea that a seasonal worker will tend to exit employment around the same time each year. We show that an excess share of prime-age U.S. workers experience recurrent separations spaced exactly 12 months apart. These separations coincide with aggregate seasonal downturns and are concentrated in seasonally volatile industries. Examining workers most prone to seasonal work interruptions, we find that these workers incur large earnings losses during the off-season. Lost earnings are 1) driven mainly by repeated separations …
Income In The Off-Season: Household Adaptation To Yearly Work Interruptions, John Coglianese, Brendan M. Price
Income In The Off-Season: Household Adaptation To Yearly Work Interruptions, John Coglianese, Brendan M. Price
Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs
No abstract provided.
Impacts Of The Covid-19 Pandemic And The Cares Act On Earnings And Inequality, Guido Matias Cortes, Eliza C. Forsythe
Impacts Of The Covid-19 Pandemic And The Cares Act On Earnings And Inequality, Guido Matias Cortes, Eliza C. Forsythe
Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs
No abstract provided.
Nudges To Increase Completion Of Welfare Applications, Christopher J. O'Leary, Dallas Oberlee, Gabrielle Pepin
Nudges To Increase Completion Of Welfare Applications, Christopher J. O'Leary, Dallas Oberlee, Gabrielle Pepin
Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs
No abstract provided.
Nudges To Increase Completion Of Welfare Applications: Experimental Evidence From Michigan, Christopher J. O'Leary, Dallas Oberlee, Gabrielle Pepin
Nudges To Increase Completion Of Welfare Applications: Experimental Evidence From Michigan, Christopher J. O'Leary, Dallas Oberlee, Gabrielle Pepin
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program provides cash assistance to very-low-income families with children. Application procedures to receive TANF benefits, however, often involve substantial transaction costs likely to reduce take-up. We estimate, through a randomized controlled trial design, the effects of a detailed telephone-call reminder to increase TANF application completion in southwest Michigan, where applicants must visit a regional public employment office at least four times to be eligible for benefits. We do not find that personalizing reminder calls increased participation in the initial appointment at the public employment office. However, conditional on attending the initial session, applicants …
Impacts Of The Covid-19 Pandemic And The Cares Act On Earnings And Inequality, Guido Matias Cortes, Eliza C. Forsythe
Impacts Of The Covid-19 Pandemic And The Cares Act On Earnings And Inequality, Guido Matias Cortes, Eliza C. Forsythe
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), we show that the Covid-19 pandemic led to a loss of aggregate real labor earnings of more than $250 billion between March and July 2020. By exploiting the panel structure of the CPS, we show that the decline in aggregate earnings was entirely driven by declines in employment; individuals who remained employed did not experience any atypical earnings changes. We find that job losses were substantially larger among workers in low-paying jobs. This led to a dramatic increase in inequality in labor earnings during the pandemic. Simulating standard unemployment benefits and Unemployment …
The Long-Term Labor Market Effects Of Parental Unemployment, Bernhard Schmidpeter
The Long-Term Labor Market Effects Of Parental Unemployment, Bernhard Schmidpeter
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
I investigate the impact of parental unemployment on children’s educational attainment and long-run labor market outcomes in Austria. I find that parental unemployment shortly before an important educational decision by parents for their children lowers a child’s probability of holding a university degree by more than 5 percentage points. I do not find that income is affected at the beginning of a child’s labor market career along the distribution, but I find a gradual deterioration later on. A substantial share of these long-term losses can be explained by the lower parental investment decision. My results emphasize the intergenerational and long-lasting …
Effects Of Welfare Time Limits, Gabrielle Pepin
Effects Of Welfare Time Limits, Gabrielle Pepin
Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs
No abstract provided.
The Effects Of Welfare Time Limits On Access To Financial Resources: Evidence From The 2010s, Gabrielle Pepin
The Effects Of Welfare Time Limits On Access To Financial Resources: Evidence From The 2010s, Gabrielle Pepin
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 established the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program within the United States. TANF mandated 60-month lifetime time limits for federal cash assistance dollars. Because states reserve the right to set their own stricter or more generous time limits, the 60-month lifetime limit did not bind in all cases. In recent years, however, several states imposed TANF time limits for the first time or made existing time limits more stringent. Using administrative and survey data, I find that stricter time limits decrease annual TANF participation by 22 percent and annual …
Do Stronger Employment Discrimination Protections Decrease Reliance On Social Security Disability Insurance? Evidence From The U.S. Social Security Reforms, Patrick Button, Mashfiqur R. Khan
Do Stronger Employment Discrimination Protections Decrease Reliance On Social Security Disability Insurance? Evidence From The U.S. Social Security Reforms, Patrick Button, Mashfiqur R. Khan
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The United States Social Security Amendments of 1983 (SSA1983) increased the full retirement age (FRA) and increased penalties for retiring before the FRA. This cut to retirement benefits caused spillover effects on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) applications and receipt by making SSDI relatively more generous. We explore if stronger disability and age discrimination laws moderated these spillovers, using variation whereby many state laws are broader or stronger than federal law. We estimate the effects of these laws on SSDI applications and receipt using a difference-in-differences approach, comparing cohorts affected by SSA1983 to similarly aged unaffected cohorts, across states. We …
Options For Unemployment Insurance Structural And Administrative Reform: Proposals And Analysis, Stephen A. Wandner
Options For Unemployment Insurance Structural And Administrative Reform: Proposals And Analysis, Stephen A. Wandner
Upjohn Institute Policy Papers
The unemployment insurance (UI) program is broken. UI benefits and taxes are out of balance, with benefit payments tending to exceed tax revenues, while the program is unable to provide adequate reemployment services to permanently separated UI recipients. The current crisis in the UI program has been building over the past four decades. Although UI and Social Security were both enacted as part of the Social Security Act, reforms to the programs have diverged sharply. Congress has frequently amended the Social Security program to increase benefits and taxes, and then in 1972 it enacted a permanent annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) …
Reforming Unemployment Insurance, Christopher J. O'Leary
Reforming Unemployment Insurance, Christopher J. O'Leary
Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs
No abstract provided.
States Lack Adequate Unemployment Insurance Reserves, Christopher J. O'Leary
States Lack Adequate Unemployment Insurance Reserves, Christopher J. O'Leary
Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs
No abstract provided.
State Unemployment Insurance Reserves Are Not Adequate, Christopher J. O'Leary, Kenneth J. Kline
State Unemployment Insurance Reserves Are Not Adequate, Christopher J. O'Leary, Kenneth J. Kline
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Regular unemployment insurance (UI) benefits are paid from reserves held in state accounts at the U.S. Treasury. The Great Recession exhausted the majority of UI reserve accounts, and not all states have rebuilt reserves. We examine the adequacy of current state and systemwide UI reserves to weather a mild, moderate, or severe recession in the coming months. Our results suggest that a recession as severe as the average of those occurring since 1975 would cause 18 states to exhaust UI reserves. Our simulations account for the fact that several states have cut benefit generosity since the Great Recession ended. Results …
Heterogeneous Impacts On Layoffs Of Changes In Brazilian Unemployment Insurance Eligibility Rules, Túlio Cravo, Christopher J. O'Leary, Ana Cristina Sierra, Leandro Justino Veloso
Heterogeneous Impacts On Layoffs Of Changes In Brazilian Unemployment Insurance Eligibility Rules, Túlio Cravo, Christopher J. O'Leary, Ana Cristina Sierra, Leandro Justino Veloso
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper is based on the first use of program administrative data from Brazil’s unemployment insurance (UI) program to assess the impact of changes in UI eligibility criteria on layoff probabilities. We exploit exogenous program changes introduced by executive and legislative changes in 2015 to estimate impacts while accounting for the number of prior UI benefit requests. We estimate that changes in UI eligibility criteria had heterogeneous impacts distinguished by the number of prior benefit requests. We show that the 2015 changes in UI eligibility rules reduced layoffs and find evidence that the changes reduced collusion between workers and employers …
Effects Of Unemployment Insurance Reforms In Brazil, Christopher J. O'Leary, Túlio Cravo, Ana Cristina Sierra, Leandro Justino Veloso
Effects Of Unemployment Insurance Reforms In Brazil, Christopher J. O'Leary, Túlio Cravo, Ana Cristina Sierra, Leandro Justino Veloso
Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs
No abstract provided.
Lessons From The American Federal-State Unemployment Insurance System For A European Unemployment Benefits System, Christopher J. O'Leary, Burt S. Barnow, Karolien Lenaerts
Lessons From The American Federal-State Unemployment Insurance System For A European Unemployment Benefits System, Christopher J. O'Leary, Burt S. Barnow, Karolien Lenaerts
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The federal-state system of unemployment insurance (UI) in the United States was established by the Social Security Act of 1935 during the Great Depression. Under the program, states provide temporary partial wage replacement to involuntarily unemployed workers with significant labor force attachment. The federal government induced states to establish UI programs through two means: 1) a uniform federal tax imposed on employer payrolls, with a 90 percent reduction granted in states operating approved UI programs, and 2) grants to states to administer their programs. The system has evolved into a collection of separate state programs adapted to different regional, economic, …
An Illustrated Case For Unemployment Insurance Reform, Christopher J. O'Leary, Stephen A. Wandner
An Illustrated Case For Unemployment Insurance Reform, Christopher J. O'Leary, Stephen A. Wandner
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We present a graphic case for unemployment insurance (UI) program reform. Through a series of illustrations summarizing historical trends, we show how the UI system has diverged from its intended purposes. Our figures show the decline of the program in addressing its essential aims of paying adequate unemployment compensation during involuntary unemployment and providing reemployment services. We illustrate the big differences in UI programs that have emerged because of the broad discretion afforded states to determine benefit generosity. We also illustrate declines in the financial means for providing benefits and reemployment services and a widening divergence among states in the …