Labor Economics Commons^™

Work From Home In The Public And Private Sector, Harley Frazis

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Working from home has remained a prominent part of the labor market after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in January 2025 President Trump issued an executive order restricting the use of work from home (WFH) in the federal government. This paper examines trends in WFH by class of worker: private for-profit, private not-for-profit, federal, state, and local government. It evaluates how WFH evolved across different classes after accounting for differences in occupation and education, with a focus on trends for WFH in the federal government, relative to the for-profit class, before and after the restriction in federal WFH. Overall, “hybrid” WFH—working …

The Worker Voice Gap: How Much Say Do Workers Want—And How Much Do They Actually Experience?, Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, Thomas A. Kochan

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

•The worker voice gap—the difference between the influence that workers want and what they experience—is very large. Nearly three-quarters of American workers want more voice at work than they currently have in three key areas: 1) compensation, 2) working conditions, and3) use of new technologies at work.

• The voice deficit is largest for compensation, but majorities of workers also express voice gaps over working conditions and the use of new technologies in their workplaces.

•Although voice gaps are relatively widespread, women tend to report larger voice gaps than men, and younger and middle-aged workers tend to report larger gaps …

The "Missing Self-Employed": How Better Data Change The Picture Of Self-Employment In The United States, Katharine G. Abraham, Susan N. Houseman, Beth C. Truesdale

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

How economically secure are self-employed workers? Accurate answers to this question depend on data that capture the full range of self-employed people, including business owners, independent contractors, and those working on an informal, often cash basis. Using data from the 2025 American Job Quality Study, we demonstrate that, because of the way standard survey questions are worded, a substantial number of self-employed people are likely miscoded as employees in existing surveys. Correctly including these “missing self-employed” increases the share of workers who are self-employed on their main job by nearly 50 percent. Compared to the self-employed captured by standard survey …

How Changes In Mexican Immigration To The United States Affect Mexican Labor Markets, Gonzalo Ares De Parga-Regalado, Marta Prato

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Are The Self-Employed Really Their Own Boss?: Evidence On The Degree Of Autonomy And Control The Self-Employed Have Over Their Work, Katharine G. Abraham, Susan N. Houseman, Beth C. Truesdale

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

Self-employment is commonly equated with being one’s own boss. This implies that, compared to employees, the self-employed have greater freedom to make their own decisions on key aspects of their job, including how they do their work and when they work. In this paper, we use information from a large, nationally representative survey, collected as part of the American Job Quality Study, to examine the degree to which workers in various self-employment arrangements do, in fact, control their own work. We find that while the self-employed are more likely than employees to have a lot of input into how and …

How Changes In Mexican Immigration To The United States Affect Mexican Labor Markets, Gonzalo Ares De Parga-Regalado, Marta Prato

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Declining U.S. Immigration On Local Labor Markets In Mexico, Gonzalo Ares De Parga-Regalado, Marta Prato

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper examines how declining migration opportunities to the United States affect local labor markets in Mexico. Using novel micro-level data from consular identification cards and deportations, we link individuals’ Mexican municipalities of origin to their U.S. destination states. We implement a shift-share design based on historical migration networks and exploit regional variation in exposure to changes in U.S. migration flows between 2017 and 2022 to identify the local labor market effects of reduced emigration while controlling for involuntary repatriations. While we find no impact on overall employment rates, regions more exposed to the decline in migration experience an increase …

How Fair Workweek Laws Affect Labor Markets: A New York City Case Study, Joseph Pickens, Aaron Sojourner

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

How Fair Workweek Laws Affect Labor Markets: A New York City Case Study, Joseph Pickens, Aaron Sojourner

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Fair Workweek Laws On Labor Market Outcomes, Joseph Pickens, Aaron Sojourner

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper models fair workweek regulations that require employers to provide employees with (1) schedule predictability via advance notice of their work schedule and premium payments for short-notice changes, and (2) access to hours meaning they must offer open hours to existing employees before hiring new workers. We develop a theoretical model of employers’ responses to these provisions and their implications for employment. Guided by the model, we estimate the effects of recently-adopted fair workweek regulation in New York City’s fast-food sector using a synthetic difference-in-differences design. We find a null employment effect.

The Effect Of Franchise No-Poaching Restrictions On Worker Earnings, Brian Callaci, Matthew Gibson, Sérgio Pinto, Marshall Steinbaum, Matt Walsh

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We evaluate the nationwide impact of the Washington State attorney general’s 2018-2020 enforcement campaign against no-poach clauses in franchising contracts, which prohibited worker movement across locations within a chain. Implementing a staggered difference-in-differences research design using Burning Glass Technologies job vacancies and Glassdoor salary reports from numerous industries, we estimate a 6 percent increase in posted annual earnings from the job vacancy data and a 4 percent increase in worker-reported earnings.

More Autonomy For Frontline Workers Supports Higher-Paying Jobs, Dylan Nelson, Nathan Wilmers, Letian Zhang

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

More Autonomy For Frontline Workers Supports Higher-Paying Jobs, Dylan Nelson, Nathan Wilmers, Letian Zhang

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Work Organization And High-Paying Jobs, Dylan Nelson, Nathan Wilmers, Letian Zhang

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

High-paying factory jobs in the 1940s were an engine of egalitarian economic growth for a generation. Are there alternate forms of work organization that deliver similar benefits for frontline workers? Work organization varies by type of complexity and degree of employer control. Technical and tacit knowledge tasks receive higher pay for signaling or developing human capital. Higher-autonomy tasks elicit efficiency wages. To test these ideas, we match administrative earnings to task descriptions from job postings. We then compare earnings for workers hired into the same occupation and firm, but under different task allocations. When jobs raise task complexity and autonomy, …

Testimony To U.S. House Education & Workforce Committee’S Workforce Protections Subcommittee, Aaron Sojourner

Testimonies

No abstract provided.

How Many Independent Contractors Are There And Who Works In These Jobs?, Katharine G. Abraham, Brad J. Hershbein, Susan N. Houseman, Beth C. Truesdale

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

How Many Independent Contractors Are There And Who Works In These Jobs?, Katharine G. Abraham, Brad J. Hershbein, Susan N. Houseman, Beth C. Truesdale

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

The Independent Contractor Workforce: New Evidence On Its Size And Composition And Ways To Improve Its Measurement In Household Surveys, Katharine G. Abraham, Brad J. Hershbein, Susan N. Houseman, Beth Truesdale

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Good data on the size and composition of the independent contractor workforce are elusive, with household survey and administrative tax data often disagreeing on levels and trends. We carried out a series of focus groups to learn how self-employed independent contractors speak about their work. Based on these findings, we designed and fielded a large-scale telephone survey to elicit more accurate and complete information on independent contractors, including those who may be coded incorrectly as employees in conventional household survey data and those who are independent contractors in a secondary work activity. We find that, upon probing, roughly one in …

How Do Broad Non-Disclosure Agreements Affect Labor Markets?, Jason Sockin, Aaron Sojourner, Evan Starr

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

How Do Broad Non-Disclosure Agreements Affect Labor Markets?, Jason Sockin, Aaron Sojourner, Evan Starr

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Wage Posting Or Wage Bargaining?: A Test Using Dual Jobholders, Marta Lachowska, Alexandre Mas, Raffaele Saggio, Stephen A. Woodbury

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Wage Posting Or Wage Bargaining?: A Test Using Dual Jobholders, Marta Lachowska, Alexandre Mas, Raffaele Saggio, Stephen A. Woodbury

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Wage Posting Or Wage Bargaining? A Test Using Dual Jobholders, Marta Lachowska, Alexandre Mas, Raffaele Saggio, Stephen A. Woodbury

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper examines the behavior of dual jobholders to test a simple model of wage bargaining and wage posting. We estimate the sensitivity of wages and separation rates to wage shocks in a worker’s secondary job to assess the degree of bargaining versus wage posting in the labor market. We interpret the evidence within a model where workers facing hours constraints in their primary job may take a second, flexible-hours job for additional income. When a secondary job offers a sufficiently high wage, a worker either bargains with the primary employer for a wage increase or separates. The model provides …

Contingent And Alternative Employment: Lessons From The Contingent Worker Supplement, 1995–2017, Katharine G. Abraham, Susan N. Houseman

Reports

The Contingent Worker Supplement (CWS) to the Current Population Survey—administered six times between 1995 and 2017—is uniquely valuable in providing detailed information on a consistent set of work arrangements in a large, nationally representative survey. Drawing on data from all six CWS waves, we provide an in-depth picture of the nature of contingent and alternative work and whether and how employment arrangements are changing in the United States. We exploit questions in the CWS to distinguish between three types of self-employment, including two types of independent contractors. We also link data on individuals in the CWS to their data in …

What Do We Know About Alternative Work Arrangements In The United States? A Synthesis Of Research Evidence From Household Surveys, And Administrative Data, Katharine G. Abraham, Susan N. Houseman

Reports

The Contingent Worker Supplement (CWS) to the Current Population Survey (CPS), fielded six times between 1995 and 2017, was designed to measure jobs that were temporary in nature as well as work arrangements thought to be associated with less commitment between workers and employers. The latter includes independent contractor and platform work, temporary help and other intermediated contract work arrangements, and on-call work, which captures a certain type of unpredictable work schedule. While the CWS provides consistent measures of the work arrangements covered in the survey over a 22-year time span, it has shortcomings. Data from other household surveys, employer …

Job Search And Hiring With Two-Sided Limited Information About Workseekers’ Skills, Eliana Carranza, Robert Garlick, Kate Orkin, Neil Rankin

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We present field experimental evidence that limited information about workseekers’ skills distorts both firm and workseeker behavior. Assessing workseekers’ skills, giving workseekers their assessment results, and helping them to credibly share the results with firms increases workseekers’ employment and earnings. It also aligns their beliefs and search strategies more closely with their skills. Giving assessment results only to workseekers has similar effects on beliefs and search, but smaller effects on employment and earnings. Giving assessment results only to firms increases callbacks. These patterns are consistent with two-sided information frictions, a new finding that can inform design of information-provision mechanisms.

Most Self-Employed Workers Are Independent Contractors, Katharine G. Abraham, Brad J. Hershbein, Susan N. Houseman

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Contract Work At Older Ages, Katharine G. Abraham, Brad J. Hershbein, Susan N. Houseman

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

The share of workers who are self-employed rises markedly with age. Given policy concerns about inadequate retirement savings, especially among those with lower education, and the resulting interest in encouraging employment at older ages, it is important to understand the role that self-employment arrangements play in facilitating work among seniors. New data from a survey module fielded on a Gallup telephone survey distinguish independent contractor work from other self-employment and provide information on informal and online platform work. The Gallup data show that, especially after accounting for individuals who are miscoded as employees, self-employment is even more prevalent at older …

The Importance Of Informal Work In Supplementing Household Income, Katharine G. Abraham, Susan N. Houseman

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

The Importance Of Informal Work In Supplementing Household Income, Katharine G. Abraham, Susan N. Houseman

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.