Movin' On Up: Reforming America's Social Contract to Provide a Bridge to the Middle Class

This research brief summarizes recent findings by the Center for Economic and Policy Research on job quality and workers' economic security. Using a rigorous methodology that improves on other more standard measures of economic security, we find that one in five Americans in working families have income below a minimum middle-class budget standard for the area in which they live. The authors argue this is the result of a frayed social contract that must be updated so that more workers can move into the middle class. The report concludes with proposals that would strengthen labor market institutions, expand work supports for families in the middle and working classes, and provide workers, particularly those in low- and moderate-wage jobs, with more opportunities to improve their skills and education throughout their lifetimes

Financialization and Its Entrepreneurial Consequences

Examines the financial sector's rise in relative economic importance and its impact on science and engineering employment and entrepreneurship. Explores new firm formation and performance and capital allocation under a scenario with a smaller sector

To Honor and Obey: Efficiency, Inequality and Patriarchal Property Rights

Published in Feminist Economics, March 2001, 7(1): 25-44.

Measuring human capital in the united states using copyright title pages, 1790-1870

This paper uses optical character recognition (OCR) to analyze the production of books in the US over 1790 to 1870 using copyright title pages taken from the online archives of the Library of Congress. We construct national time series of book production over this period which show an uptake in per-capita terms in 1830, around the starting point of the US’ industrial revolution. We break down the production of books into topics using keywords for 8 topics: science, religion, novel, invention, diffusion, business, philosophy and textbook. On this basis we show that the composition of book production by topics is stable over time, except for textbooks and novels which show a persistent increase over the whole period both in relative and absolute terms. This pushes back the beginning of the growth in US human capital before the first reliable data on schooling and literacy starting in 1870. We thus offer mild support to an interpretation of US growth over the 19th century based on the expansion of knowledge and capabilities, while conceding that the link between the content of books and industrialization is tenuous

Changes in the Distribution of Workers’ Hourly Wages Between 1979 and 2009

[Excerpt] This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study, which was prepared at the request of the chairman and former ranking member of the Senate Committee on Finance, documents changes in the level and distribution of hourly wages received by workers in the United States between 1979 and 2009. It also reviews the leading explanations for changes in the supply of, and demand for, workers with different sets of skills as well as the role of labor market institutions in affecting wages. In keeping with CBO’s mandate to provide objective, impartial analysis, this study does not make any recommendations

Gender and the Tournament: Reinventing Antidiscrimination Law in an Age of Inequality

Since the 1970’s, antidiscrimination advocates have approached Title VII as though the impact of the law on minorities and women could be considered in isolation. This article argues that this is a mistake. Instead, Reinventing Antidiscrimination Law attempts to reclaim Title VII’s original approach, which justified efforts to dismantle segregated workplaces as necessary to both eliminate discrimination and promote economic growth. Using that approach, this Article is the first to consider how widespread corporate tournaments and growing gender disparities in the upper echelons of the economy are intrinsically intertwined, and how they undermine the core promises ofantidiscrimination law. The Article draws on a pending case challenging the “rank and yank” evaluation system at Microsoft, as well as social science literature regarding narcissism and stereotype expectations, to illustrate how consideration of the legitimacy of competitive pay for performance schemes is essential to combating the intrinsically gendered nature of advancement in the new economy

Unions, Education, and the Future of Low-Wage Workers

Low-wage workers have never had privileged access to desirable labor market opportunities but their position has significantly deteriorated over the last two decades, as union representation has decreased and the demand for higher skilled labor increased. This essay explores the future for low-wage workers and begins by defining what we mean by low-wage work, and also who low-wage workers are. I next explore the two most common advocated paths for improving the lives of low-wage workers: reviving unions and a human capital focus. I suggest that reviving unions, even in the context of the Employee Free Choice Act, offers at best a limited hope for improving the labor market opportunities for most low-wage workers. For a variety of complicated reasons, there is no basis for expecting a substantial resurgence of union representation, even if the law is changed to make union organizing more effective. Instead, I emphasize a human capital path, noting in particular, that far too many young individuals attend college without attaining any degree, and I discuss the important role community colleges can play in enhancing the human capital of low-wage workers. In the final part of the paper, I discuss educational reforms at the high school level that target at-risk populations, including a return to vocational education and the rise in charter schools, both of which might offer important opportunities for students to excel in school

Socializing the subject of criminal law? Criminal responsibility and the purposes of criminalization

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Peril and Possibility: Strikes, Rights, and Legal Change in the Era of Trump

Thank you, I am delighted to be here. When Professor Fisk and the editors of the Journal asked if I would be willing to give the Feller Lecture this year, I did not hesitate for a moment. It goes without saying that, for a labor law professor, to give a lecture that commemorates David Feller is truly a special honor. While I never had the chance to meet him, his work as an advocate and scholar serves as an example for everyone in the field. I am grateful to the Journal and to the Feller family for the opportunity to be with you, and I am particularly grateful for the opportunity to be with you today, in this moment in our country’s history. Everyone in this audience is well aware of the problems plaguing working people in America. Income inequality in the United States is at stunningly high levels, leading commentators to term this era the “new Gilded Age.” The statistics are by now familiar, but they are worth reiterating. The wealthiest one percent of Americans takes home nearly a quarter of our national income and owns forty percent of the nation’s wealth

Peril and Possibility: Strikes, Rights, and Legal Change in the Era of Trump

Everyone in this audience is well aware of the problems plaguing reiterating. The wealthiest one percent of Americans takes home nearly a quarter of our national income and owns forty percent of the nation\u27s wealth