Youth Employment in the Seventies: The Changing Circumstances of Young Adults

This paper examines the changing employment patterns for young men and women aged 16 to 24 over the 1970s and pays particular attention to the widening racial differences. Between 1970 and 1980 employment rates for both black men and women in this age range fell roughly 14 points relative to those of whites. Macroeconomic conditions, the reduction in the size of the military, changing schooling patterns,family structure, fertility patterns, and several public policies, are all examined in an attempt to understand the patterns of the seventies.The conclusion reached is that perhaps one-half of the diverging racial employment patterns can be "explained" by the variables we examine. For young men the most important forces appear to be the changing structure of the military, worsening macroeconomic conditions,and increased school enrollment among blacks. For women, the military is less important, of course, but shifts in family structure and fertility are rather important.

Teenage Unemployment: What is the Problem?

This nontechnical paper was prepared as a background study for the NBER Conference on Youth Joblessness and Employment. Our analysis of data collected in the March 1976 and October 1976 Current Population Surveys leads us to the following conclusions: Unemployment is not a serious problem for the vast majority of teenage boys. Less than 5 percent of teenage boys are out of school, unemployed and looking for full-time work. Many out of school teenagers are neither working nor looking for work and most of these report no desire to work. Virtually all teenagers who are out of work live at hone. Among those who do seek work, unemployment spells tend to be quite short; over half end within one month when these boys find work or stop looking for work. Nevertheless, much of the total amount of unemployment is the result of quite long spells among a small portion of those who experience unemployment during the year. Although nonwhites have considerably higher unemployment rates than whites, the overwhelming majority of the teenage unemployed are white. Approximately half of the difference between the unemployment rates of whites and blacks can be accounted for by demographic and economic differences. There is a small group of teenagers with relatively little schooling for whom unemployment does seen to be a serious and persistent problem. This group suffers most of the teenage unemployment. Although their unemployment rate improves markedly as they move into their twenties, it remains very high relative to the unemp1oynent rate of better educated and more able young men.

The Clinton Legacy for America's Poor

This paper examines the impact of Clinton era social policy changes on the poor. It explores shifts in incentives, behavior, and incomes and discusses the role Clinton did or did not play in influencing the policy mix and the nature of the political debate surrounding poverty. Policy changes included a radical shift in welfare policy, a sizable expansion in supports for low income workers with children, new child support enforcement measures, more restricted support for immigrants, and altered housing policies. Partly as a result of these policies, but also in part due to the strong economy, welfare use plummeted, work rose dramatically among single parents, and poverty was reduced. At the same time, there are indications that some families are doing worse than before and that some working families are not getting health and food benefits to which they are entitled. Significant questions remain about what will happen to poor families in the next recession.

Slipping into and out of Poverty: The Dynamics of Spells

This paper examines the dynamics of poverty. Previous analyses of the dynamics of poverty have either examined only fluctuations in the male heads earnings or looked at the frequency of poverty periods over a fixed time frame. We argue that a more appropriate way to understand the dynamics of poverty is to define spells of poverty. Using this methodology we find that the majority of poor persons at any point in time are in fact in the midst of a rather long spell of poverty. The methodology also allows us to estimate the extent to which poverty spell beginnings and endings are associated with changes in income or changes in family structure. Less than 40 percent of poverty spell beginnings seem to be caused by a drop in the heads earnings,while 60 percent of endings occur when the head's earnings increase. As a result we argue that to understand the causes and potential remedies for poverty, researchers must focus on household formation decisions and on the behavior of so called secondary family members.