Labor Markets
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Michael Hout -
Gregory Acs -
David Card -
Jesse Rothstein
Leaders: Gregory Acs, David Card, Michael Hout, Jesse Rothstein
The labor market was of course hit very heavily by the Great Recession, as evidenced by (a) the slow recovery of the unemployment rate, (b) and the even slower recovery of the long-term unemployment rate and the prime-age employment ratio (defined as the ratio of employed 25-54 year-olds to the population of that same age). This “jobs problem,” which is especially prominent among low-skill workers, has led to a sharp rise in the number of poor households without any working adults. It also underlies, in part, the sharp increase in the number of disability insurance claims and awards, which in turn has further reduced the supply of labor among low-skilled individuals.
If the first type of “jobs problem” is that there still are not enough of them, the second is that the jobs that are available do not always provide the requisite hours, wages, or security that are needed for a sure pathway out of poverty. As a result, low-skill individuals are not just working less but, even when they are working, there is no guarantee that their jobs will lift them and their families out of poverty. The Labor Markets RG is tasked with conducting research on these and related problems and exploiting administrative and other data to assess possible policy responses to them. We list below a few examples of the work being carried out in this group.
Long-run effects of work incentives: As nonworking poverty increases, the U.S. might well want to turn to new types of work incentive programs. Have these programs worked elsewhere?
Minimum wages and poverty: Throughout the west coast, there are a host of minimum wage “experiments” underway, experiments that have the potential to reset the low-wage labor market in quite fundamental ways. How are these experiments playing out?
Featured Examples
Labor Markets - CPI Research
| Title | Author | Media | |
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| Older Workers, Retirement, and the Great Recession | Richard W. Johnson |
Older Workers, Retirement, and the Great RecessionAuthor: Richard W. JohnsonPublisher: Date: 10/2012 The workforce in the United States is becoming ever older. Because the number of older workers is growing, and because work is increasingly important to older adults, it is worth examining how older workers are faring in the Great Recession. This brief reports on employment, unemployment, and labor force participation among older workers since 2007, just before the labor market collapsed. It focuses on workers age 62 or older, nearly all of whom qualify for Social Security retirement benefits, an important safety net if laid off. However, it also examines outcomes for workers as young as age 50, whom employers appear somewhat reluctant to hire. |
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| Crime and the Great Recession | Christopher Uggen |
Crime and the Great RecessionAuthor: Christopher UggenPublisher: Russell Sage Foundation and Center on Poverty and Inequality Date: 10/2012 Common sense tells us that crime should increase during hard times. After all, more than 90 percent of the serious "index" crimes reported each year in the government's Uniform Crime Reports involve some kind of financial remuneration. And we've all seen examples of people taking desperate actions when they are cold, broke, and hungry, whether through real-life, firsthand observations or through fictional characters like Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath. Yet there is much evidence that crime rates and economic indicators often diverge. |
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| The Social Safety Net and the Great Recession | Robert A. Moffitt |
The Social Safety Net and the Great RecessionAuthor: Robert A. MoffittPublisher: Date: 10/2012 As the economic downturn wears on, the debate about U.S. spending on the safety net has become increasingly rancorous. Indeed, former presidential candidate Newt Gingrich famously referred to Barack Obama as "the food stamp president" in the early-2012 campaign trail. The purpose of this recession brief is to step back from the rancor and describe in straightforward fashion how spending on the safety net has responded to the Great Recession. |
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| Charitable Giving and the Great Recession | Rob Reich, Christopher Wimer |
Charitable Giving and the Great RecessionAuthor: Rob Reich, Christopher WimerPublisher: Date: 10/2012 Americans have long been, and continue to be, a famously charitable people. Whereas Europeans have well-developed and comprehensive welfare states, the United States has always relied more on private charity to support a multitude of causes, including aid and assistance to the poor. |
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| Consumption and the Great Recession | Luigi Pistaferri, Ivaylo Petev |
Consumption and the Great RecessionAuthor: Luigi Pistaferri, Ivaylo PetevPublisher: Date: 10/2012 The particular trauma of severe downturns is that declining consumer spending, itself a reaction to the economy's contraction, also undermines the prospects for recovery. Consumption is, in other words, a fundamental determinant of business cycles - a kind of litmus test of economic health. But it's not just an important determinant of future economic performance. We also look to consumption as an omnibus measure of the set of socioeconomic conditions that underlie consumer behavior, such as job opportunities, price fluctuations, access to credit, and financial security. In this recession brief, we offer an interpretation of recent consumption data in order to determine the extent of the economic damage and its unequal distribution across the American populace. |
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labor markets - CPI Affiliates
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Martina Morris |
Professor of Sociology and Statistics |
University of Washington - Seattle |
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Mary C. Brinton |
Reischauer Institute Professor of Sociology |
Harvard University |
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Patricia A. Roos |
Professor of Sociology |
Rutgers University-New Brunswick |
Pages
Labor Markets - Other Research
| Title | Author | Media | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Great Recession and State Criminal Justice Policy: Do Economic Hard Times Matter? | Peter K. Enns, Delphia Shanks-Booth |
The Great Recession and State Criminal Justice Policy: Do Economic Hard Times Matter?Author: Peter K. Enns, Delphia Shanks-BoothPublisher: Russell Sage Foundation Date: 12/2015 It costs a lot to maintain the world's highest incarceration rate. Did the largest economic shock since the Great Depression influence criminal justice policy and resulting incarcerations? |
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| The Great Recession and Mothers' Health | Christopher Wimer |
The Great Recession and Mothers' HealthAuthor: Christopher WimerPublisher: Russell Sage Foundation Date: 10/2015 Given the now well known effects of the Great Recession on economic outcomes of individuals and families, researchers have turned to the question of how this major economic downturn affected domains of family life. In a recent paper, Janet Currie of Princeton University and Valentina Duque and Irwin Garfinkel of Columbia University study the health of young mothers in the context of the Great Recession. Two key findings emerged. First, increased unemployment was associated with worsened self-reported health status and increased smoking and drug use. Second, more disadvantaged mothers suffered the greatest effects for self-reported health, while more advantaged mothers sometimes showed improvements in their health and health behaviors in response to the recession. |
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| The Great Recession and Fathers' Health | Allison Corr |
The Great Recession and Fathers' HealthAuthor: Allison CorrPublisher: Russell Sage Foundation Date: 10/2015 Economic recessions can have detrimental impacts on individual and family wellbeing. New research by Janet Currie of Princeton University and Valentina Duque of Columbia University assesses how the Great Recession affected the health of fathers with young children. The analysis yields two main findings. First, high unemployment was associated with declines in physical health but little change in health-compromising behaviors. Second, changes in physical health were concentrated among fathers in the lower end and middle of the education distribution. |
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| The Great Recession and Parents' Relationships | Christopher Wimer |
The Great Recession and Parents' RelationshipsAuthor: Christopher WimerPublisher: Russell Sage Foundation Date: 06/2015 Economic downturns are stressful experiences for those affected by them, as well as those connected to affected family members and loved ones. Did the recent Great Recession lead to significant changes in the relationships between parents of young children? |
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| The Great Recession and the Private Safety Net | Christopher Wimer |
The Great Recession and the Private Safety NetAuthor: Christopher WimerPublisher: Russell Sage Foundation Date: 02/2015 In a recent paper, Princeton University’s Aaron Gottlieb and Columbia University’s Natasha Pilkauskas and Irwin Garfinkel provide some of the first insights into how families’ private safety nets responded to the Great Recession. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), the authors investigate whether the Great Recession was associated with increased transfers to parents of young children by anyone other than the child’s father. |
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Labor Markets - Multimedia
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