Labor Economics Commons^™

Use Of Ui And Es By Recent Tanf Leavers, Christopher J. O'Leary

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Outcomes Of Policies For Displaced Workers: An American Perspective, Christopher J. O'Leary

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Net Impact Evaluation Of Moving Men And Women To Economic Independence In Michigan, Within Reach Program: Year 1 And Year 2 Cohorts, Randall W. Eberts, Jason M. Preuss

Presentations

The authors completed a net impact evaluation of the “Within Reach” component of the Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit program (Moving Men and Women to Economic Independence). This program provided employment-related support services to disadvantaged adults as coordinated by WorkFirst. The net impact evaluation estimated the contribution of the program to the employment outcomes of the participants. It constructed comparison groups of individuals who were similar to the program participants, but who did not participate in the program. The net impact analysis focused on three employment-related outcomes: finding a job, retaining a job (workforce attachment), and earnings.

Unemployment After Welfare Reform, Christopher J. O'Leary

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Competitive Strategies In The Us Retail Industry: Consequences For Jobs In Food And Consumer Electronics Stores, Françoise Carré, Chris Tilly, Brandynn Holgate

Center for Social Policy Publications

US retail markets are characterized by consolidation, globalization, and the spread of big-box discounters. What do these trends mean for job quality and workers? For compensation, skill content of jobs, and opportunities for promotion? What role do institutions—regulatory, or representative—play in shaping company strategies, and outcomes for jobs as well as workers?

Retail generates a large and growing volume of entry-level jobs and is a rare industry with few educational requirements at entry. It is a highly relevant area of the labor market to examine to understand opportunities for low skill and mid level skill workers.

Findings come from case …

Monetary Policies In A Small Open Economy Model With Labor Mobility And Remittances, Diana Rose Del Rosario

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This paper presents a model of a small open economy that allows for international labor mobility, thereby endogenizing migrant transfers or remittances. The resulting model is calibrated to the Philippine economy, of which labor migration and remittance inflows are key forces that drive the economy’s growth. The model’s impulse response functions illustrate that the presence of these features generates a different set of dynamics from the standard small open economy model (without labor mobility). Depending on the source of the shock, labor mobility and remittances can either exacerbate or cushion the impact of the shock on the economy. A temporary …

Washington Pension System Review, H. Allan Hunt, Peter S. Barth, Heather Grob, Henry George Harder, Michael Silverstein

Testimonies

No abstract provided.

Nurturing America's Growth In The Global Marketplace Through Talent Development: An Interim Report On The Evaluation Of Generations Ii And Iii Of Wired, Nancy Hewat, Kevin Hollenbeck

Reports

This is the first report from the evaluation of Generations II and III of the Workforce Innovations in Regional Economic Development Initiative. This interim report presents baseline information from all 26 regions. It reflects the status of regional activities as of the summer of 2008, when many regions were in the initial stage of implementation. Thus, the report focuses on the development of partnerships, governance arrangements, and the design of decision-making processes. In early 2006, ETA announced the initial recipients of grants to promote regional collaboration of a wide range of public and private organizations with the goal of transforming …

Flexible Work Arrangements: Improving Job Quality And Workforce Stability For Low-Wage Workers And Their Employers, Jessica Glenn, Liz Watson

Published Reports

In 2009, workers and their families across the country felt the impact of serious economic downturn, with unemployment reaching a 26-year high. While recent news suggests things may be improving, we cannot forget that for many low-wage and hourly workers -- who now represent over a quarter of the U.S. workforce -- the recession only exacerbated their ongoing struggle to hold down quality jobs while caring for their families.

Low-wage workers face many of the same challenges that the rest of us face in reconciling our work, family and personal lives, but for many of these workers, it's simply a …

Searching For A New Brand: Reimagining A More Diverse Orlando, Kevin Archer, Kris Bezdecny

All Faculty Scholarship for the School of Graduate Studies and Research

No abstract provided.

Estimated State And Local Fiscal Effects Of The Nurse Family Partnership Program, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This short paper estimates the state and local fiscal benefits of the Nurse Family Partnership (NFP) program. NFP provides nurse home visiting services to low-income first-time mothers. In addition to social benefits, NFP provides state and local fiscal benefits by reducing costs of social services, welfare, and crime, and increasing tax receipts due to increased earnings of mothers and former child participants when they grow up. Based on previous studies, this paper estimates that the present value, in 2007 dollars, of these state and local fiscal benefits is a little over $15,000 per NFP case.

Women, Work, And Welfare Reform, Kristin S. Seefeldt

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Who Will Care For The Women?, Candace Howes

Economics Faculty Publications

Over 20 million people today, including children, working-age disabled, and elderly persons, require some sort of assistance to live safely. Largely because women live longer than men, well into the ages when the probability of needing care increases, 70 percent of elderly people who need long-term care are women. Furthermore, most long-term care is provided by women, mainly as unpaid care in the home, or as low-paid care in institutions and community settings (Stone & Weiner 2001). The United States faces a severe long-term care crisis because of the nation's inability to plan for the changing demographic balance. The crisis …

Chinese Women And Economic Human Rights, Lisa Fry

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Women’s human rights in China have an intriguing history and a challenging present. In ancient China, Confucianism espoused the virtues of silent women who stayed at home. During the Maoist period, on the other hand, gender equality was prioritized by the state, and women were equally appointed to leadership positions and agricultural collectives with men. After Mao’s death, the country transitioned to a social market economic system that resulted in a loss of state support for gender equity. Today, the rights of women in China are not clearly defined, protected, or promoted. China’s patriarchal traditions have reasserted themselves, obstructing women’s …

Brokering Up: The Role Of Temporary Staffing In Overcoming Labor Market Barriers, Françoise Carré, Brandynn Holgate, Helen Levine, Mandira Kala

Center for Social Policy Publications

Alternative Staffing Organizations (ASOs) are social-purpose businesses created by community-based organizations and national nonprofits to “broker up” job seekers, starting with temporary assignments and forming bridges to better jobs. Funded by the C. S. Mott Foundation, the Alternative Staffing Demonstration examined four ASOs around the country for a three-year research project, with 18 months of close monitoring, exploring, and assessing the ASO model. The Center for Social Policy studied how ASOs structure the services they provide, handle day-to-day management issues, and sell their services. We found the ASO model was variously adapted to generate short-term employment, build work experience, provide …

An End In Itself And A Means To Good Ends: Why Income Equality Is Important, Arthur Macewan

Center for Social Policy Publications

In recent years “poverty reduction” has become the watchword in development agencies, in international lending institutions, and among development economists generally. The focus on poverty reduction reached a high point perhaps with the articulation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and with the extensive analytic work that has accompanied the MDGs. Yet, much of the discussion of poverty reduction and economic development in low and middle income countries has either ignored the issue of income distribution or has tended to view income distribution only in terms of its impact on economic growth.

Poverty and inequality, however, are intimately bound up …

America’S Biggest Low-Wage Industry: Continuity And Change In Retail Jobs, Françoise Carré, Chris Tilly

Center for Social Policy Publications

For those concerned with job quality in the United States, the retail industry commands attention. Retail is not only the largest low-wage industry in the country’s economy; it is the largest industry, period. It generates numerous entry level jobs for those with limited formal training. Hourly wages of nonsupervisory workers in retail languish at about three-quarters the national average. Retail is a very important employer of young workers. Its workforce is also disproportionately female. Women are concentrated in particular retail sub-sectors and some minority groups seem to remain employed in retail over time. At the same time, retail jobs—at least, …

Fits & Starts: The Difficult Path For Working Single Parents, Rebecca Loya, Ruth J. Liberman, Randy Albelda, Elisabeth Babcock

Center for Social Policy Publications

With dramatic shifts in the economy in recent years, it has become increasingly difficult for families to move into or stay in the middle class without access to higher education and skills training. Government-sponsored work supports help by providing direct assistance to working families to meet basic needs, such as child care, food, and housing. Yet, many supports do not reach low-wage working families in Massachusetts because of low eligibility thresholds, inadequate funding, limited availability, limited awareness, and numerous barriers to accessing such supports. Even for low-wage workers who do receive key work supports, such as subsidized child care and …

Panel Ii: The Clean Energy Economy, Hilda Solis, Dina Titus, Dan Reicher, Edward Mazria

National Clean Energy Summit

Panel discussion Moderator: Steve Colwell, Executive Director, Sea Change Foundation

For Love, Money Or Flexibility: Why People Choose To Work In Consumer-Directed Homecare, Candace Howes

Economics Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of wages and benefits (relative to other jobs available to workers), controlling for personal characteristics, on the recruitment and retention of providers working in a consumer-directed home care program.

This article was written as part of a project titled ‘‘Building a High Quality Homecare Workforce: Wages, Benefits and Flexibility Matter,’’ which was supported by a research grant from the Better Jobs Better Care Program and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (#049213) and Atlantic Philanthropies (#12099) with direction and technical assistance provided by the Institute for the Future of …

Continuity And Change In Low-Wage Work In U.S. Retail Trade, Françoise Carré, Chris Tilly, Brandynn Holgate

Center for Social Policy Publications

Retail work is undergoing significant change in the United States. To explore these changes, and their impacts in terms of turnover, skill levels, and other key workforce variables, we conducted 18 case studies of retail businesses. We spoke to employees from top corporate executives to frontline employees, visited stores, and reviewed HR statistics. This paper summarizes major findings from the study.

We start by stating the study’s key questions, principal findings from public data sources, and the study design. We then review field findings on patterns in job quality across four dimensions (schedules, compensation, duties, and turnover/training/mobility). We identify two …

Working After Welfare: How Women Balance Jobs And Family In The Wake Of Welfare Reform, Kristin S. Seefeldt

Upjohn Press

This book, tapping into the quantitative and qualitative evidence gathered in the Women’s Employment Study (WES), offers insights into the lives of women in an urban Michigan county who left welfare for work and the role their family decisions play in their labor market decisions.

The Economic Foundations Of Contemporary Slavery, Justin Guay

Human Rights & Human Welfare

“Slavery existed before money or law” (Hochschild 2005). Indeed the “peculiar institution” is one of humanity’s oldest. It has, however, evolved and manifested itself quite distinctly in different periods of history. In contrast to historical views of slavery that are associated with Chattel Slavery, numerous forms fall under the umbrella term of contemporary slavery. The United Nations (U.N.) Working Group recognizes such radically new forms as: child labor, children in conflict, trafficking in persons, sexual exploitation, and the sale of children. The International Labor Office (ILO) approaches the topic through the lens of forced labor. The ILO recognizes slavery and …

Economic Dashboard Supplemental Report – Other Social And Economic Indicators, George A. Erickcek

Reports

No abstract provided.

Distance To Frontier And The Big Swings Of The Unemployment Rate: What Room Is Left For Monetary Policy?, Hian Teck Hoon, Kong Weng Ho

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper builds upon Hoon and Phelps (1992, 1997) to ask how much of the evolution of the unemployment rate over several decades in country can be explained by real factors in an equilibrium model of the natural rate where country's productivity growth depends upon its distance from the world's technological leader. One motivating contemporary example includes the evolution of unemployment rates in Europe as it recovered from the second world war and caught up technologically to the US. Another example that may be less familiar to many people is Singapore (the second fastest growing economy from 1960 to 2000 …

Michigan Socioeconomic Conditions And Trends: West Michigan Compared To East Michigan, Brad R. Watts

Reports

No abstract provided.

Omanization Of Oman's Private Sector: Implementation, Challenges, And Solutions, Mazid Al-Rawas

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study was designed to determine the status of the implementation of the Omanization policy, challenges associated with the Omani government in implementing the Omanization policy, and the solutions appropriate to overcome these challenges in the implementation of Omanization. Data for this study was collected through a survey that included 13 Likert-type statements developed by the researcher. The population of this study consisted of 50 human resource managers in private companies; these companies were randomly selected from the list of all companies registered in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry for the Sultanate of Oman. The researcher received a total …

Estimating Guard Labor, Arjun Jayadev

Economics Faculty Publication Series

As a background paper to Jayadev and Bowles (2006), this paper provides details on our measure of guard labor as we measure these in labor units. Data from the United States indicate a significant increase in its extent in the U.S. over the period 1890 to the present. Cross-national comparisons show a significant statistical association between income inequality and the fraction of the labor force that is constituted by guard labor, as well as with measures of political legitimacy (inversely) and political conflict.

The Class Content Of Preferences Towards Anti-Inflation And Anti Unemployment Policies, Arjun Jayadev

Economics Faculty Publication Series

This paper assesses class based preferences towards anti-inflationary and anti-unemployment policy. Using a consistent cross-country social survey, I find that the working class broadly defined, and those with lower occupational skill and status are more likely to prioritize combating unemployment rather than inflation. The result is robust to the inclusion of several plausible controls. The idea that the working class is less ‘relatively inflation averse’ is consistent with earlier predictions coming from large body of political economy research in the 1970s. The finding that inflation and unemployment aversion have a distinct class character has implications for current debates on the …

Labor Supply With Social Interactions: Econometric Estimates And Their Tax Policy Implications, Andrew Grodner, Thomas J. Kniesner

Center for Policy Research

Our research fleshes out econometric details of examining possible social interactions in labor supply. We look for a response of a person's hours worked to hours worked in the labor market reference group, which includes those with similar age, family structure, and location. We identify endogenous spillovers by instrumenting average hours worked in the reference group with hours worked in neighboring reference groups. Estimates of the canonical labor supply model indicate positive economically important spillovers for adult men. The estimated total wage elasticity of labor supply is 0.22, where 0.08 is the exogenous wage change effect and 0.14 is the …