Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Predictive Analytics Supporting Labor Market Success: A Career Explorer For Job Seekers And Workforce Professionals In Michigan, Christopher J. O'Leary, Salomon Orellana, Kevin Doyle, Randall W. Eberts, Ben Damerow, Amy Meyers, Kenneth J. Kline, Anna Wilcoxson, Beth C. Truesdale, Scott Powell

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Career Explorer provides customized career exploration tools for workforce development staff and job seekers in Michigan. There are separate Career Explorer modules for mediated staff services and self-service by job seekers. The system was developed by the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics in collaboration with the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and Michigan Works! Southwest. It was funded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Workforce Investment and the Schmidt Futures foundation’s Data for the American Dream (D4AD) project. In this paper, we describe specifications of the models behind the frontline-staff-mediated version of Career Explorer, which are …

Gender Gaps From Labor Market Shocks, Ria Ivandić, Anne Sophie Lassen

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Job loss leads to persistent adverse labor market outcomes, but assessments of gender differences in labor market recovery are lacking. We utilize plant closures in Denmark to estimate gender gaps in labor market outcomes and document that women face an increased risk of unemployment and lose a larger share of their earnings in the two years following job displacement. When accounting for observable differences in human Capital across men and women, half of the gender gap in unemployment remains. In a standard decomposition framework, we document that child care imposes an important barrier to women’s labor market recovery regardless of …

Reemployment Services And Eligibility Assessments (Resea) In Maryland—Program Year 2020 Evaluation, Gabrielle Pepin, Christopher J. O'Leary, Kenneth J. Kline, Ting Zhang

Upjohn Institute Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Transforming Unemployment Insurance For The Twenty-First Century: A Comprehensive Guide To Reform, Stephen A. Wandner

Upjohn Press

This book proposes options and recommendations for comprehensive reform of the unemployment insurance program that was initiated as a social insurance program by the Social Security Act of 1935. It documents the development of the program and its decline since the 1970s. Reform proposals and recommendations are synthesized from reforms suggested by policy analysts and researchers over many decades.

Why Are Unemployment Insurance Claims So Low?, Christopher J. O'Leary, Kenneth J. Kline, Thomas A. Stengle, Stephen A. Wandner

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Equity In Unemployment Insurance Benefit Access, Christopher J. O'Leary, William E. Spriggs, Stephen A. Wandner

Presentations

No abstract provided.

Why Are Unemployment Insurance Claims So Low?, Christopher J. O'Leary, Kenneth J. Kline, Thomas A. Stengle, Stephen A. Wandner

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Why Are Unemployment Insurance Claims So Low?, Christopher J. O'Leary, Kenneth J. Kline, Thomas A. Stengle, Stephen A. Wandner

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

In this paper, we examine the reasons why unemployment insurance (UI) claims have declined so dramatically over the past three decades. The fall in the UI claims rate is concerning because it suggests a reduced countercyclical effectiveness of the UI program. Additionally, weekly initial UI claims are regarded as an important leading indicator of aggregate economic activity, so their meaning has changed. We use a Oaxaca (1973) decomposition approach to identify the main factors for the decline in claims. The procedure suggests what the level of claims would have been later in the period, had values of variables or parameters …

Michigan Unemployment Insurance: Background For Planning Analysis, Christopher J. O'Leary

Presentations

No abstract provided.

Unemployment Insurance: Fix It And Fund It, Christopher J. O'Leary, David E. Balducchi, Ralph E. Smith

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

During the 2020–2021 pandemic, the federal-state unemployment insurance (UI) system in the United States nearly reached the breaking point. The surge in joblessness was matched in history only by the Great Depression of the 1930s. Congress hurriedly crafted temporary pandemic benefit assistance programs to fill benefit and eligibility gaps in state-run UI programs, handing them off to capacity-starved state UI agencies that fitfully served millions of workers and employers. After years of policy neglect and contraction, state UI programs have low benefit recipiency, meager earnings replacement rates, and inadequate benefit financing. It is time for comprehensive federal UI reform legislation, …

Reemployment Services And Eligibility Assessments (Resea) In Maryland—Plan For Annual Assessments With Incremental Improvements, Christopher J. O'Leary, Gabrielle Pepin, Ting Zhang

Upjohn Institute Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Firms And Unemployment Insurance Take-Up, Marta Lachowska, Isaac Sorkin, Stephen A. Woodbury

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We use administrative data to quantify the firm role in unemployment insurance (UI) take-up. First, there are firm effects in both claiming and appeals, and, consistent with deterrence effects, these are negatively correlated. Second, low-wage workers are less likely to claim and more likely to have their claims appealed than median-wage workers, and firm effects explain a large share of these income gradients. Third, high-claiming and low-appealing firms are desirable firms: they are higher-paying and have lower separation rates. Finally, the dominant source of targeting error in the UI system is that eligible workers do not apply. Our findings emphasize …

The Wagner-Peyser Act And U.S. Employment Service: 75 Years Of Matching Job Seekers And Employers, Christopher J. O'Leary, Randall W. Eberts

Presentations

No abstract provided.

How Federal Pandemic Relief Helped Replenish State Unemployment Reserves, Christopher J. O'Leary, Kenneth J. Kline

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

How Federal Pandemic Relief Helped Replenish State Unemployment Reserves, Christopher J. O'Leary, Kenneth J. Kline

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

Unemployment insurance (UI) is a joint federal-state program that pays temporary partial earnings replacement to involuntarily unemployed workers while they seek reemployment. During the COVID-19 pandemic, UI claims surged and became a primary source for income replacement for workers who lost their jobs. However, despite previous federal incentives for states to shore up their UI funding reserves, the scale of claims during the pandemic was unprecedented, and the federal government needed to step in to help pay not only for direct, expanded benefits but for additional assistance to states themselves. Although this effort helped backstop the successful operation of states’ …

Reemployment Services And Eligibility Assessments (Resea) In Maryland—Formative Evaluation, Program Year 2019, Christopher J. O'Leary, Gabrielle Pepin, Ting Zhang, Conrad Helms

Upjohn Institute Technical Reports

Unemployment insurance (UI) exists to provide temporary partial wage replacement during periods of involuntary unemployment while beneficiaries are actively seeking reemployment. The reemployment effort required of UI beneficiaries, which balances the work disincentive of income replacement, ensures that UI is social insurance rather than social welfare.

In 2017, Congress appropriated funding to provide reemployment services and eligibility assessments (RESEA) to UI beneficiaries. The legislation also required that states receiving RESEA conduct annual evaluations to produce causal evidence that reemployment services and eligibility assessments are effective.

In this formative evaluation, we produce the first causal effect estimates of the Maryland RESEA …

Equity In Unemployment Insurance Benefit Access, Christopher J. O'Leary, William E. Spriggs, Stephen A. Wandner

Presentations

No abstract provided.

How Reliable Are Administrative Reports Of Paid Work Hours?, Marta Lachowska, Alexandre Mas, Stephen A. Woodbury

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper examines the quality of quarterly records on work hours collected from employers in the State of Washington to administer the unemployment insurance (UI) system, specifically to determine eligibility for UI. We subject the administrative records to four “trials,” all of which suggest the records reliably measure paid hours of work. First, distributions of hours in the administrative records and Current Population Survey outgoing rotation groups (CPS) both suggest that 52–54% of workers work approximately 40 hours per week. Second, in the administrative records, quarter-to-quarter changes in the log of earnings are highly correlated with quarter-to-quarter changes in the …

Equity In Unemployment Insurance Benefit Access, Christopher J. O'Leary, William E. Spriggs, Stephen A. Wandner

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

This paper examines the uneven pattern of access to unemployment insurance (UI) by age, gender, and race across the United States. We present results from a descriptive analysis using publicly available longitudinal data reported by states on rates of UI recipiency and characteristics of UI beneficiaries. Recipiency measures the proportion of all unemployed who are receiving UI benefits. UI is intended to provide temporary, partial income replacement to involuntarily unemployed UI applicants with strong labor force attachments while they are able, available, and actively seeking return to work. Each of these UI eligibility conditions contributes to the UI recipiency rate …

Reemployment Services And Eligibility Assessments (Resea) In Maryland: Process Analysis Report, Christopher J. O'Leary, Gabrielle Pepin, Ting Zhang, Conrad Helms

Upjohn Institute Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

The Covid-19 Pandemic's Evolving Impacts On The Labor Market: Who's Been Hurt And What We Should Do, Brad J. Hershbein, Harry J. Holzer

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

In this paper, we shed light on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labor market, and how they have evolved over most of the year 2020. Relying primarily on microdata from the CPS and state-level data on virus caseloads, mortality, and policy restrictions, we consider a range of employment outcomes—including permanent layoffs, which generate large and lasting costs—and how these outcomes vary across demographic groups, occupations, and industries over time. We also examine how these employment patterns vary across different states, according to the timing and severity of virus caseloads, deaths, and closure measures. We find that the …

Covid-19'S Impacts On The Labor Market In 2020, Brad J. Hershbein, Harry J. Holzer

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Income In The Off-Season: Household Adaptation To Yearly Work Interruptions, John Coglianese, Brendan M. Price

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Unemployment Insurance Benefit Generosity On Re-Employment Wages During The Great Recession, Hayden Cobb

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper examines the impact of the replacement ratio on re-employment wages during the great recession. This is done using a data set from IPUMS CPS displaced workers supplement between 2005 and 2012. Using OLS analysis, I estimated the impacts of the replacement ratio on the ratio of re-employment wages to pre-unemployment wages. I found that a replacement ratio of one would lead to a 77.6% increase in the ratio of re-employment wages to pre-unemployment wages, without the consideration of any other variables. The findings of the replacement ratio support economic theory and contradict the findings of some major papers …

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

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

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

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

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 …

Redundancy Insurance Is Not Unemployment Insurance, Zhengxiao Wu

Research Collection School Of Economics

In a commentary, SMU Senior Lecturer of Statistics Wu Zhengxiao discussed the difference between redundancy insurance and unemployment insurance. He shared Japan's example, where the cost for unemployment insurance is higher than redundancy insurance, and added that being an unprecedented policy, more care should be taken when implementing it.