Employment During the 2001–2003 Recovery

This background paper examines job growth following the 2001 recession. After declining by about 1.6 million jobs during that recession, employment fell by more than an additional million jobs in the first 18 months following the end of the recession. Understanding why employment fell even as output recovered can be useful both in assessing the labor market and in forecasting the path of employment during future recoveries

Immigration Policy in the United States

Immigration policy in the United States reflects multiple goals. First, it serves to reunite families by admitting immigrants who already have family members living in the United States. Second, it seeks to admit workers with specific skills and to fill positions in occupations deemed to be experiencing labor shortages. Third, it attempts to provide a refuge for people who face the risk of political, racial, or religious persecution in their country of origin. Finally, it seeks to ensure diversity by providing admission to people from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States. Several categories of permanent and temporary admission have been established to implement those wide-ranging goals. This Congressional Budget Office paper describes who is eligible for the various categories of legal admission and provides the most recent data available about the number of people admitted under each category. The paper also discusses procedures currently used to enforce immigration laws and provides estimates of the number of people who are in the United States illegally

How CBO Forecasts Income

[Excerpt] Because federal receipts are determined to a great extent by taxes collected on individual and business income, this background paper focuses on how CBO projects income earned by individuals and businesses. It concentrates primarily on CBO\u27s methodology as it pertains to those categories of individual and business income that are encompassed within the framework of the national income and product accounts, or NIPAs (see Appendix A for explanations). Using that framework for projecting income helps to ensure consistency with CBO\u27s projections of the overall economy

Utilization of Tax Incentives for Retirement Saving: An Update

[From Preface] This Congressional Budget Office background paper updates CBO’s Utilization of Tax Incentives for Retirement Saving (August 2003). That paper examined participation rates and contributions to employment-based retirement plans, individual retirement accounts (IRAs), and Keogh plans in 1997. This paper presents comparable figures for 2000 and shows how patterns of utilization changed between the two years. The paper also presents data that were not available in 1997. Roth IRAs, for example, became available in 1998. In addition, information on contributions to simplified employee pensions (SEPs) and savings incentive match plans for employees (SIMPLEs) became available in 2000. Overall, the paper finds that participation in tax-favored retirement plans declined slightly over the study period. Increases in IRA and 401(k) participation were more than offset by declines in participation in noncontributory plans, such as traditional defined-benefit plans. In keeping with CBO’s mandate to provide objective, impartial analysis, the report makes no recommendations

The State Children’s Health Insurance Program

[Excerpt] The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was established by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 to expand health insurance coverage to uninsured children in families with income that is modest but too high to qualify for Medicaid. SCHIP is financed jointly by the federal government and the states, and it is administered by the states within broad federal guidelines. Since the program’s inception, the Congress has provided nearly $40 billion for it. Approximately 6.6 million children were enrolled in SCHIP at some time during 2006, as were about 670,000 adults through waivers of statutory provisions. Under current law, SCHIP is not authorized to continue beyond 2007, and the Congress is considering reauthorization of the program this year

Comparing the Pay of Federal and Nonprofit Executives: An Update

A CBO PaperCBOComparePayFedandNonProfitExecutives2003_1.pdf: 508 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Trends in Earnings Variability Over the Past 20 Years

[Excerpt]-- A significant number of workers experience substantial variability in their total wage earnings from year to year. About one-in-five workers saw their earnings fall by more than 25 percent between 2002 and 2003, and about one-in-seven saw their earnings fall by more than 50 percent. Roughly the same shares of workers experienced increases in earnings of 25 percent or 50 percent. -- Some variability in earnings stems from workers\u27 voluntary actions, such as deciding to stay home and rear children, and some stems from involuntary events, such as the loss of a job. Moreover, earnings variability was higher for younger workers and for workers with lower levels of educational attainment. -- The decline in macroeconomic volatility over the past several decades does not appear to have translated into lower levels of variability in workers\u27 earnings. Since 1980, there has been little change in earnings variability for both men and women. There is some evidence that, between 1960 and 1980, earnings variability increased for men but was offset by a decrease for women. Those findings are consistent with most existing studies of the topic that use publicly available survey data, which tend to find higher levels of earnings variability for men in the 1980s and 1990s relative to the 1970s, but little change since around 1980

Social Security : A Primer

"September 2001"Cover title.Includes bibliographical references.Mode of access: Internet

Generic drug competition: The pharmaceutical industry “gaming” controversy

Among American adults 20 years and older, 59 percent take at least one prescription drug on a regular basis. Unlike most branded drugs, which are generally drugs that have a trade name and are protected by a patent, off‐patent generic drugs make up approximately 90 percent of prescriptions annually filled in the United States; yet in 2017, generic drugs made up only 23 percent of total drug costs in the U.S. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has taken the lead in encouraging increased competition in the nation’s prescription drug marketplace, most recently with its release of the agency’s Drug Competition Action Plan, but also with its regulatory guidance and enforcement efforts to eliminate “gaming” of the regulatory process by both branded and generic pharmaceutical manufacturers. Such “gaming” activities include “pay‐for‐delay” agreements involving financial compensation between branded and generic pharmaceutical manufacturers to forestall the emergence into the market of generic pharmaceuticals to compete against a formerly patent‐protected branded drug. A combination of new enabling legislation, federal judicial guidance, and agency regulatory activities show promise in encouraging increased competition in the prescription drug marketplace, with the American consumer the ultimate beneficiary of lower health care costs and improved overall personal health.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/152498/1/basr12186_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/152498/2/basr12186.pd