Do Asian Men Face Wage Discrimination in the United States?

Currently there is a debate regarding whether Asian men suffer from workplace discrimination on account of their race. The research findings have been mixed. Cabezas and Kawaguchi (1988) found that in the San Francisco Metropolitan Area, both foreign-born and U.S.-born men who were of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, and Korean descent earned less than similarly qualified U.S.-born white men, although they did not examine the statistical significance of these findings. Using the same 1980 census data on a national sample of Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Asian Indian, and Korean men, Duleep and Sanders (1992) find differences in earnings by race that are statistically significant only for those of Asian Indian descent. Using Current Population Survey data in the 1990s, Ong (2000) finds that foreign-born Asian men earn 7% less than U.S.-born men but there is no evidence that U.S.-born men suffer from lower earnings due to their race. Sakamoto and Furuichi (2002) also fail to find earnings discrimination agianst U.S.-born Asians using a similar data

A Tale of Two Decades: Changes in Work and Earnings in Massachusetts, 1979–1999

Over the past twenty years, Massachusetts has replaced the mantle of old-style manufacturing with a robust “new economy.” Our economic vitality has never been better. But not all individuals benefited from the 1990s boom as they had from the one a decade earlier. Some of our residents are worse off than they were before

The Working Poor--A Statistical Artifact?

We examine the effect of measurement error on estimates of the size of the working poor population. Using a unique data set, which includes both self-reported and employer-reported earnings, we find that inaccurately reported earnings are common. Among those with very low self-reported earnings are many individuals with underreported earnings. However, this is offset by a high incidence of over reporting among those who actually have low earnings. We find that, by fortunate coincidence, these counterbalancing sources of measurement error cancel each other out exactly. Estimates of the working poor population based on self-reported earnings are extremely accurate. This result is robust to changes in the designated poverty threshold.Earnings; Poor

Gaming in Massachusetts: Can Casinos bring \u27Good Jobs\u27 to the Commonwealth?

This study examines the quality of jobs in the United States gaming industry and analyzes enabling legislation in five states that have legalized gaming. The authors find that the gaming industry -- particularly the unionized sector of the casino hotel industry -- provides good jobs with good wages and benefits for workers with less than a high school degree. The authors conlcude that workforce development efforts in Masschusetts must include strategies to address improving the quality of entry-level jobs

Introduction to Symposium on the Working Poor

This is a short introduction to the four paper symposium on the working poor in this issue.Earnings; Poor

The Working Poor: Lousy Jobs or Lazy Workers?

This paper investigates the argument that the working poor are poor because they work too few hours. I find that although working additional hours reduces the chance of poverty, most of full-time and year-round, due to the low wages they receive. In addition, of those who could climb out of poverty by working year-round, many are unable to do so, due to disability, age, or poor who could potentially escape poverty by working 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year.

The Working Poor and Welfare Recipiency

Current welfare debates assume that the poor are taking unfair advantage of the largess of the government by shunning work for welfare benefits. Yet many studies have shown that many of those who qualify for welfare benefits fail to receive assistance. This study adds to this growing body of research by examining the extent to which the working poor who qualify for AFDC, Food Stamps, and Medicaid receive these benefits. We find that a substantial number of the working poor do not receive the benefits for which they qualify. In addition, those who qualify for welfare benefits are not out of the ordinary: most are in married couple families, are in their prime working years, have at least high school educations, and work many hours. The jobs they hold, which tend to be in low-paid service occupations and industries, seem to deposit them into their precarious position of belonging to the working poor.

Predicting Chemical Ocular Toxicity Using a Combinatorial QSAR Approach

Regulatory agencies require testing of chemicals and products to protect workers and consumers from potential eye injury hazards. Animal screening, such as the rabbit Draize test, for potential environmental toxicants is time-consuming and costly. Therefore, virtual screening using computational models to tag potential ocular toxicants is attractive to toxicologists and policy makers. We have developed quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) models for a set of small molecules with animal ocular toxicity data compiled by the National Toxicology Program Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods. The data set was initially curated by removing duplicates, mixtures, and inorganics. The remaining 75 compounds were used to develop QSAR models. We applied both k nearest neighbor and random forest statistical approaches in combination with Dragon and Molecular Operating Environment descriptors. Developed models were validated on an external set of 34 compounds collected from additional sources. The external correct classification rates (CCR) of all individual models were between 72 and 87%. Furthermore, the consensus model, based on the prediction average of individual models, showed additional improvement (CCR = 0.93). The validated models could be used to screen external chemical libraries and prioritize chemicals for in vivo screening as potential ocular toxicants