Last Hired, First Fired? Black-White Unemployment and the Business Cycle

Past studies have tested the claim that blacks are the last hired during periods of economic growth and the first fired in recessions by examining the movement of relative unemployment rates over the business cycle. Any conclusion drawn from this type of analysis must be viewed as tentative because the cyclical movements in the underlying transitions into and out of unemployment are not examined. Using Current Population Survey data matched across adjacent months from 1989 to 2004, this paper provides the first detailed examination of labor market transitions for prime-age black and white men to test the last-hired, first-fired hypothesis. Considerable evidence is presented that blacks are the first fired as the business cycle weakens. However, no evidence is found that blacks are the last hired. Instead, blacks appear to be initially hired from the ranks of the unemployed early in the business cycle and later are drawn from non-participation. The narrowing of the racial unemployment gap near the peak of the business cycle is driven by a reduction in the rate of job loss for blacks rather than increases in hiring.race, unemployment, business cycle

Discovery of a Large-scale Wall in the Direction of Abell 22

We report on the discovery of a large-scale wall in the direction of Abell 22. Using photometric and spectroscopic data from the Las Campanas Observatory and Anglo-Australian Telescope Rich Cluster Survey, Abell 22 is found to exhibit a highly unusual and striking redshift distribution. We show that Abell 22 exhibits a foreground wall-like structure by examining the galaxy distributions in both redshift space and on the colour-magnitude plane. A search for other galaxies and clusters in the nearby region using the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey database suggests that the wall-like structure is a significant large-scale, non-virialized filament which runs between two other Abell clusters either side of Abell 22. The filament stretches over at least >40 Mpc in length and 10 Mpc in width at the redshift of Abell 22.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS letter

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.

The Stellar Populations of Low-redshift Clusters

We present some preliminary results from an on-going study of the evolution of stellar populations in rich clusters of galaxies. This sample contains core line-strength measurements from 183 galaxies with b_J <= 19.5 from four clusters with ~0.04. Using predictions from stellar population models to compare with our measured line strengths we can derive relative luminosity-weighted mean ages and metallicities for the stellar populations in each of our clusters. We also investigate the Mgb'-sigma and Hbeta_G'-sigma scaling relations. We find that, consistent with previous results, Mgb' is correlated with sigma, the likely explanation being that larger galaxies are better at retaining their heavier elements due to their larger potentials. Hbeta', on the other hand, we find to be anti-correlated with sigma. This result implies that the stellar populations in larger galaxies are older than in smaller galaxies.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of IAU Colloquium 195: "Outskirts of Galaxy Clusters: intense life in the suburbs", Torino Italy, March 12-16 200

The German Apprenticeship Experience: A Comparison of School-to-Work Models

In its fiscal year 1994 budget, the Clinton administration asked for $270 million to initiate a national system for school-to-work transition. The money is only a fraction of the funds already available for transition programs under the federal Vocational Education Program and the Job Training Partnership Act. In August the administration submitted a more comprehensive legislative proposal aimed at high school students who don\u27t intend to go onto college. The legislation would provide grants for states to establish school-to-work systems and additional help for states and localities that steady have such programs. The price tag for fiscal year 1995,$300 million. Students who finish the program would receive a high school diploma and an occupational skill certificate