Public policies for the working poor: The earned income tax credit versus minimum wage legislation

This paper documents the declining relationship between low hourly wages and low household income over the last half-century and how this has reduced the share of minimum wage workers who live in poor households. It then compares recent and prospective increases in the earned income tax credit (EITC) and the minimum wage as methods of increasing the labor earnings of poor workers. Data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) are used to simulate the effects of both programs. Increases in the EITC between 1989 and 1992 delivered a much larger proportion of a given dollar of benefits to the poor than did increases in the minimum wage from $3.35 to$4.25. Scheduled increases in the EITC through 1996 will also do far more for the working poor than raising the minimum wage.

Dynamical evolution of globular cluster systems in clusters of galaxies I. The case of NGC 1404 in the Fornax cluster

We investigate, via numerical simulations, the tidal stripping and accretion of globular clusters (GCs). In particular, we focus on creating models that simulate the situation for the GC systems of NGC 1404 and NGC 1399 in the Fornax cluster, which have poor (specific frequency $S_{\rm N}$ $\sim$ 2) and rich ($S_{\rm N}$ $\sim$ 10) GC systems respectively. We initially assign NGC 1404 in our simulation a typical $S_{\rm N}$ ($\sim$ 5) for cluster ellipticals, and find that its GC system can only be reduced through stripping to the presently observed value, if its orbit is highly eccentric (with orbital eccentricity of $>$ 0.5) and if the initial scale length of the GCs system is about twice as large as the effective radius of NGC 1404 itself. These stripped GCs can be said to have formed a `tidal stream' of intracluster globular clusters (ICGCs) orbiting the centre of Fornax cluster (many of which would be assigned to NGC 1399 in an imaging study). The physical properties of these GCs (e.g., number, radial distribution) depend on the orbit and initial distribution of GCs in NGC 1404. Our simulations also predict a trend for $S_{\rm N}$ to rise with increasing clustercentric distance - a trend for which there is some observational support in the Fornax cluster.Comment: 12 pages 12 figures, MNRAS in pres

Eridanus - A Supergroup in the Local Universe?

We examine a possible supergroup in the direction of the Eridanus constellation using 6dF Galaxy Survey second data release (6dFGS DR2) positions and velocities together with 2MASS and HyperLEDA photometry. We perform a friends-of-friends analysis to determine which galaxies are associated with each substructure before examining the properties of the constituent galaxies. The structure is made up of three individual groups that are likely to merge to form a cluster of mass 7x10^13 Msolar. We conclude that this structure is a supergroup. We also examine the colours, morphologies and luminosities of the galaxies in the region with respect to their local projected surface density. We find that the colours of the galaxies redden with increasing density, the median luminosities are brighter with increasing environmental density and the morphologies of the galaxies show a strong morphology-density relation. The colours and luminosities of the galaxies in the supergroup are already similar to those of galaxies in clusters, however the supergroup contains more late-type galaxies, consistent with its lower projected surface density. Due to the velocity dispersion of the groups in the supergroup, which are lower than those of clusters, we conclude that the properties of the constituent galaxies are likely to be a result of merging or strangulation processes in groups outlying this structure.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA

Poincare ball embeddings of the optical geometry

It is shown that optical geometry of the Reissner-Nordstrom exterior metric can be embedded in a hyperbolic space all the way down to its outer horizon. The adopted embedding procedure removes a breakdown of flat-space embeddings which occurs outside the horizon, at and below the Buchdahl-Bondi limit (R/M=9/4 in the Schwarzschild case). In particular, the horizon can be captured in the optical geometry embedding diagram. Moreover, by using the compact Poincare ball representation of the hyperbolic space, the embedding diagram can cover the whole extent of radius from spatial infinity down to the horizon. Attention is drawn to advantages of such embeddings in an appropriately curved space: this approach gives compact embeddings and it distinguishes clearly the case of an extremal black hole from a non-extremal one in terms of topology of the embedded horizon.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures; CQG accepte

A Richness Study of 14 Distant X-ray Clusters From the 160 Square Degree Survey

We have measured the surface density of galaxies toward 14 X-ray-selected cluster candidates at redshifts greater than z=0.46, and we show that they are associated with rich galaxy concentrations. We find that the clusters range between Abell richness classes 0-2, and have a most probable richness class of one. We compare the richness distribution of our distant clusters to those for three samples of nearby clusters with similar X-ray luminosities. We find that the nearby and distant samples have similar richness distributions, which shows that clusters have apparently not evolved substantially in richness since redshift z =0.5. We compare the distribution of distant X-ray clusters in the L_x--richness plane to the distribution of optically-selected clusters from the Palomar Distant Cluster Survey. The optically-selected clusters appear overly rich for their X-ray luminosities when compared to X-ray-selected clusters. Apparently, X-ray and optical surveys do not necessarily sample identical mass concentrations at large redshifts. This may indicate the existence of a population of optically rich clusters with anomalously low X-ray emission. More likely, however, it reflects the tendency for optical surveys to select unvirialized mass concentrations, as might be expected when peering along large-scale filaments.Comment: The abstract has been abridged. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Putting the Minimum Wage Debate in a Historical Context: Card and Krueger Meet George Stigler

Half a century ago George Stigler stated that evaluation of minimum wage policy should revolve around two questions: Does such legislation diminish poverty? Are there efficient alternatives? We argue that historically these were and continue to be appropriate questions to ask with respect to this policy. We then replicate and evaluate the analysis in Chapter 9 of Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage with regards to these questions. Given the evolution of the Earned Income Tax Credit we conclude that, aside from nostalgia, it is hard to explain the continued support for increasing the minimum wage by those interested in helping the working poor, and that Card and Krueger provide little new evidence to rekindle such support

Disentangling the Dynamical Mechanisms for Cluster Galaxy Evolution

The determination of the dynamical causes of the morphological Butcher-Oemler (BO) effect, or the rapid transformation of a large population of late-type galaxies to earlier Hubble types in the rich cluster environment between intermediate redshifts and the local universe, has been an important unsolved problem which is central to our understanding of the general problems of galaxy formation and evolution. In this article, we survey the existing proposed mechanisms for cluster galaxy transformation, and discuss their relevance and limitations to the explanation of the morphological BO effect. A new infrared diagnostic approach is devised to disentangle the relative importance of several major physical mechanisms to account for the BO effect, and an example of the first application of this procedure to a single rich, intermediate redshift galaxy cluster is given to demonstrate the viability of this approach. The preliminary result of this analysis favors the interaction-enhanced secular evolution process as the major cause of the cluster-galaxy morphological transformation. This conclusion is also supported by a wide range of other published results which are assembled here to highlight their implications on a coherent physical origin for the morphological BO effect.Comment: Accepted for publication in the PAS

Visualizing the Invisible: A Guide to Designing, Printing, and Incorporating Dynamic 3D Molecular Models to Teach Structure–Function Relationships

Understanding the intricate relationship between macromolecular structure and function represents a central goal of undergraduate biology education (1–3). In teaching complex three-dimensional (3D) concepts, instructors typically depend on static two-dimensional (2D) textbook images or computer-based visualization software, which can lead to unintended misconceptions (4–6). While chemical and molecular kits exist, these models cannot handle the size and detail of macromolecules. Consequently, students may graduate in the life sciences without understanding how structure underlies function or acquiring skills to translate between 2D and 3D molecular models (5, 7)

Who Minimum Wage Increases Bite: An Analysis Using Monthly Data from the SIPP and CPS

In this paper we use an estimating equation from the research of leading proponents of the view that minimum wage increases do not cause employment losses. Rather than using annual data from the May Current Population Survey (CPS), we test this hypothesis using monthly data from both the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and the CPS. We find the traditional result that neoclassical theory would predict: minimum wage increases create employment losses that are concentrated among less valued workers. Minimum wage increases have an insignificant effect on the employment of prime age workers (aged 25 to 61), but they have large and significant negative employment effects on teenagers, young high school dropouts, and young blacks. Hence, the very people minimum wage policies claim to help are most likely to be adversely affected

The Morphological Content of Ten EDisCS Clusters at 0.5 < z < 0.8

We describe Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging of 10 of the 20 ESO Distant Cluster Survey (EDisCS) fields. Each ~40 square arcminute field was imaged in the F814W filter with the Advanced Camera for Surveys Wide Field Camera. Based on these data, we present visual morphological classifications for the ~920 sources per field that are brighter than I_auto=23 mag. We use these classifications to quantify the morphological content of 10 intermediate-redshift (0.5 < z < 0.8) galaxy clusters within the HST survey region. The EDisCS results, combined with previously published data from seven higher redshift clusters, show no statistically significant evidence for evolution in the mean fractions of elliptical, S0, and late-type (Sp+Irr) galaxies in clusters over the redshift range 0.5 < z < 1.2. In contrast, existing studies of lower redshift clusters have revealed a factor of ~2 increase in the typical S0 fraction between z=0.4 and z=0, accompanied by a commensurate decrease in the Sp+Irr fraction and no evolution in the elliptical fraction. The EDisCS clusters demonstrate that cluster morphological fractions plateau beyond z ~ 0.4. They also exhibit a mild correlation between morphological content and cluster velocity dispersion, highlighting the importance of careful sample selection in evaluating evolution. We discuss these findings in the context of a recently proposed scenario in which the fractions of passive (E,S0) and star-forming (Sp,Irr) galaxies are determined primarily by the growth history of clusters.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures; To be published in ApJ; minor changes made to table label