Labor Economics Commons^™

Employment Trends And Poverty Status: Men And Women In The New York City Metro Area Between 2000 And 2017, Sarah Kostecki

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

This report examines employment trends and poverty status among men and women aged 25-54 in the New York City metropolitan area. The report assesses the characteristics of these persons, while examining trends and differences in poverty status by sex, race/ethnicity, and across the five largest Latino nationalities.

Methods:

This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml). See Public Use Microdata Series Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, Matthew …

Career Paths With A Two-Body Problem: Occupational Specialization And Geographic Mobility, Valeria Rueda, Guillaume Wilemme

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We develop a model of joint job search and occupational choice in which job opportunities can be incompatible inside the couple. Typically, incompatibilities may arise because jobs are not in the same location. We show that the existence of incompatible jobs pushes some couples to sacrifice the career of one partner. The model predicts occupational switches throughout the career and at the time of couple formation. Gendered equilibria, whereby all women (or men) choose the accommodating occupation, may arise. Any element of ex-ante unfavorable gender gaps—for instance, due to discrimination or norms—is amplified and can generate large systemic differences in …

Barriers To Post-Secondary Success, Douglas Swanson, Najeana Henderson, Maritza Sloan

Dissertations

This study reviews factors that prior studies have identified or failed to consider as barriers to post-secondary success. The three main areas include academic success for Latinx students after high school, organizational systems and their impact on African-American students’ postsecondary readiness, and what workers think of their high school education with regards to career preparedness.

Five factors are identified as major barriers for Latinx students to continue in a higher education system. A survey of former students from Saint Louis, Missouri, and Dallas, Texas, metroplex area identified 56 Latinx students that participated in an initial survey. This led to a …

Economic Outlook For Lakeshore Advantage: Getting To 2030, Jim Robey, Kathleen Bolter, Gerrit Anderson, Emily Boyle, Claudette Robey, Brian Pittelko, Jennifer Nichols, Minh Dang

Reports

Lakeshore Advantage, a nonprofit economic development organization serving businesses in Allegan and Ottawa counties, teamed up with the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research to better understand the long-term economic health of its region. The Upjohn Institute conducted an analysis of Allegan and Ottawa counties to hone in on the strengths of these communities and offer insights on where improvements are needed to grow the region and achieve Lakeshore Advantage’s 2030 goals which include ranking at or above selected comparative communities for median household income, average annual pay, total employment growth, and educational attainment. This study includes an examination of …

Making The Child Care Tax Credit Permanently Refundable Could Benefit Low-Income Families, Gabrielle Pepin

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

How Would A Permanently Refundable Child And Dependent Care Credit Affect Eligibility, Benefits, And Incentives?, Gabrielle Pepin

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

The federal Child and Dependent Care Credit (CDCC) subsidizes child care costs for working families. Before 2021, the CDCC was nonrefundable, so only families with positive tax liability after other deductions benefited. I estimate how CDCC eligibility, benefits, and marginal tax rates would change if the credit were made permanently refundable, relative to 2020 CDCC parameters set to be restored in 2022. Under refundability, some 5 percent of single parents gain eligibility and receive on average over $1,000 annually. Eligibility increases are largest among Black and Hispanic households. Increases in marginal tax rates among moderate-income taxpayers are small.

Labor Market Trends And Outcomes: What Has Changed Since The Great Recession?, Erica L. Groshen, Harry J. Holzer

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We describe trends in wages and labor force participation for the “working class”—whom we define as workers with high school or less education—compared to those with college or more. We compare cyclical peaks over the entire period 1979–2019, with particular focus on the Great Recession (2007–2010) and recovery (2010–2019). We also present results by gender and race. We find real wage growth in the latter period for all workers, but not enough to change the long-term trends of growing inequality and stagnant wages for the less-educated; and we also find that labor force participation continued to decline for the less-educated, …

Globalization, Trade Imbalances, And Labor Market Adjustment, Rafael Dix-Carneiro, João Paulo Pessoa, Ricardo Reyes-Heroles, Sharon Traiberman

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We study the role of global trade imbalances in shaping the adjustment dynamics in response to trade shocks. We build and estimate a general equilibrium, multicountry, multisector model of trade with two key ingredients: 1) consumption-saving decisions in each country commanded by representative households, leading to endogenous trade imbalances, and 2) labor market frictions across and within sectors, leading to unemployment dynamics and sluggish transitions to shocks. We use the estimated model to study the behavior of labor markets in response to globalization shocks, including shocks to technology, trade costs, and intertemporal preferences (savings gluts). We find that modeling trade …

Workforce Outcomes Of Tuition-Free College: Early Findings, Brad J. Hershbein, Michelle Miller-Adams

Presentations

No abstract provided.

Human Capital And Black-White Earnings Gaps, 1996–2017, Owen Thompson

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper estimates the contribution of human capital to the Black-white earnings gap in three separate samples of men spanning from 1966 through 2017, using both educational attainment and performance on standardized tests to measure human capital. There are three main findings. First, the magnitude of reductions in the Black-white earnings gap that occur after controlling for human capital has become much larger over time, suggesting a growing contribution of human capital to Black-white earnings disparities. Second, these increases are almost entirely due to growth in the returns to human capital, which magnify the impact of any racial differences in …

Architecture, Social Norms, And Their Economic Consequences In Japan, Koichi Kume

Japanese Society and Culture

Law and market mechanisms presuppose that people are rational. With the diversification of lifestyles and values, however, there is a limit to appealing only to economic rationality to implement social policies. In this study we focus on architecture as a policy instrument that does not presuppose people’s rationality and empirically analyze the effect on economic consequences in Japan. Specifically, we examine the relationship between bank transfers and poverty reduction, and that between statues (Sontoku Ninomiya, Jizo) and labor norms. The results suggest that the use of architecture in policy can improve policy effectiveness regardless of people’s irrationality and heterogeneous preferences.

The Case For Public Investment In Higher Pay For New York State Home Care Workers: Estimated Costs And Savings, Isaac Jabola-Carolus, Stephanie Luce, Ruth Milkman

Publications and Research

This report explores one potential solution to the mounting home care labor shortage in New York State: substantially raising wages for the state's home care workers. The analysis presents detailed projections, based on the best available data, of the economic effects of such an intervention, estimating the costs and benefits that would result. We find that public funding to raise home care wages would require significant resources, but those costs would be surpassed by the resulting savings, tax revenues, and economic spillover effects. The net economic gain would total at least $3.7 billion. Lifting wages would also help fill nearly …

Comments On Three Papers On Labor Market Effects Of Opportunity Zones, Timothy J. Bartik

Presentations

No abstract provided.

Labor Market Monopsony And Wage Inequality: Evidence From Online Labor Market Vacancies, Samuel I. Thorpe

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper estimates the effects of employer labor market power on wage inequality in the United States. I find that inequality as measured by interdecile range is 23.7% higher in perfectly monopsonistic labor markets than in perfectly competitive markets, even when controlling for commuting zone and occupation fixed effects. I also decompose these results into 50/10 and 90/50 ratios, finding much larger impacts on inequality among low earners. These results suggest that monopsony power has significant and policy-relevant impacts on wage inequality, and particularly harms the lowest earning subsets of the labor force.

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.

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 …

Job Creation Policies Can Raise Local Employment Rates, Especially For Distressed Communities, Timothy J. Bartik

Employment Research Newsletter

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.

Occupational Licensing And Immigrants, Hugh Cassidy, Tennecia Dacass

Economics Faculty Scholarship

This study examines the incidence and impact of occupational licensing on immigrants using two sources of data: the Current Population Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. We find that immigrants are significantly less likely to have a license than similar natives and that this gap is largest for men, workers in the highest education level, and nonnaturalized immigrants. The licensing rate increases with years since migration and shows large variation by immigrants’ region of origin. A lack of English proficiency reduces the probability that an immigrant has a license. The wage premium from having a license is …

Educational Investments In Low-Income Households: The Role Of Parental Occupational Identity And Substitutability, Aparna Anand

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Poor parents face difficult trade-offs when investing in their children's education. This dissertation studies how low-income urban households in Southern India, where child labor is a concern, make educational investments for their children. First, I build a model that shows how educational investments are shaped by the possibility of children substituting labor for their parents. Second, I collect parent surveys, child surveys, and student-level administrative data from schools and construct a linked dataset. Third, I examine the relationship between educational investments and several pertinent factors, with an emphasis on child labor substitution and the strength of occupational identity. I find …

Informed Choices: Gender Gaps In Career Advice, Yana Gallen, Melanie Wasserman

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper estimates gender differences in access to informal information regarding the labor market. We conduct a large-scale field experiment in which real college students seek information from 10,000 working professionals about various career paths, and we randomize whether a professional receives a message from a male or a female student. We focus the experimental design and analysis on two career attributes that prior research has shown to differentially affect the labor market choices of women: the extent to which a career accommodates work/life balance and has a competitive culture. When students ask broadly for information about a career, we …

The National-Level Economic Impact Of The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (Mep): Estimates For Fiscal Year 2020, Jim Robey, Kathleen Bolter, Natalie Patten, Edison Rolle

Reports

No abstract provided.

Long-Run Effects On Employment Rates Of Local Demand Shocks, Across And Within Local Labor Markets, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper estimates the long-run effects on a county’s prime-age employment rate of labor demand shocks to both the county and its overlying commuting zone (CZ). These effects are allowed to vary with local “distress” (baseline employment rate of the county or CZ), and with the size of the demand shock. In more distressed CZs, a county’s employment rate is more affected by county or CZ shocks. As a result, targeting or reallocating jobs to more distressed CZs will tend to raise employment rates. If a county is relatively distressed compared to its CZ, targeting job shocks at that county …

Job Creation Policies Can Raise Local Employment Rates, Especially For Distressed Communities, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Measuring Local Job Distress, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

In this paper, estimates are presented on short-run effects of demand shocks on a local labor market’s employment to population ratio (employment rate). Based on the estimates, commuting zones (CZs) better define a local labor market than counties, because both employment and employment rate effects exhibit large spillovers across counties within a CZ. In addition, the estimates suggest that demand shock effects vary, by an amount that is both statistically and substantively significant, with a CZ’s prior overall employment rate.

Survey Of The Labor Market For New Ph.D. Hires In Economics 2021-2022, Mervin Jebaraj, David Sorto, Raja Kali

Labor Market Survey

This year, the survey questionnaire was sent to 368 organizations. Questionnaires were returned by 144 organizations (39.1 percent). Of this year’s responses, 53 (36.8 percent) were from those who responded to the last survey conducted for the 2020-21 academic year. Among the academic institutions responding, the distribution of highest degrees offered was as follows: Ph.D.—51.4 percent; Master’s—11.8 percent and Bachelor’s—35.4 percent.

The responses are reported for all respondents, and separately for Ph.D. Degree granting institutions and for schools whose highest degree offered is the Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree. Data for the top 30 institutions in the revised National Research Council’s …

Race And Jobs At Risk Of Being Automated In The Age Of Covid-19, Kristen E. Broady, Darlene Booth-Bell, Jason Coupet, Moriah Macklin

CCU Faculty Books

No abstract provided.

The Productivity Wage Gap, Monopsony, And Labor Share Decline: An Analysis Of Wage Suppression Perpetuated By Power, Alexandra Coulter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that wage suppression along with the decline in the labor share is caused by a rise in monopsony power realized as a significant increase in the profit share. It attributes the rise in monopsonistic behavior to the development and expansion of the modern corporation. This thesis investigates the reasons for wage suppression, identifies causes of the declining labor share left as exogenous in mainstream models, examines traditional economic wage determination and search models, and evaluates the political economy implications. This work reviews literature on imperfect competition, the corporation, contracts, search and match models, and the motivation of …

Employee Ownership And Moral Hazard: How Broad-Based Equity Sharing Can Lower Agency Costs And Reduce Inequality, Colin Clinton Hudson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Providing incentives to top managers by offering equity has become the norm; this practice, however, does not hold for all levels of employees. After tax incentives for employee ownership were introduced through the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, there has been little legislative support to encourage companies to implement broad-based equity sharing programs. Moreover, decades of neoliberal policies have incentivized the pursuit of short-term profits and speculation, which contribute to economic instability and explain the growing gap between productivity and real wages observed since the late 1970s. Developments in the literature contend that employee ownership aligns the goals …

Children’S Health And Maternal Work Activities, Termeh Tavangar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I estimate the effect of poor child health on maternal labor force participation. Mothers of health-impaired children may decide not to work and stay at home to take care of their children. Alternatively, mothers may choose to enter the labor force to pay for these children’s additional resources. Which action dominates is the empirical question I answer in this paper. I control for the potential endogeneity of a child’s health status by using an instrumental variables approach. I find that if mothers have a child in poor health, the probability that the mother works is decreased by thirteen percentage points, …