Profile of Central City Milwaukee Labor Force Participants: Fall 1993 Household Survey

Adults in 487 Milwaukee households were interviewed in late Fall of 1993 to solicit information on central city residents employed or seeking jobs, the education and training background of workers and job seekers, perceived barriers to employment, and the availability of health insurance for Milwaukee families. The survey was conducted in English and in Spanish. The labor force status of central city residents, rather than a fixed condition of permanent employment or unemployment, represents a highly fluid situation. About a fourth of employed men and women (ages 18-59) were working in temporary or part-time jobs. Desire for better pay, advancement, more hours and better working conditions were cited by employed Milwaukee residents seeking new jobs. In spite of their increased employment experience, central city men did not show greater stability in employment as they moved into middle-age. The highest proportion of central city men employed in full-time permanent jobs were in their thirties, with employment rates declining for men in their forties and dropping sharply for men in their fifties and sixties. Women were most likely to be employed in full-time permanent jobs in their forties at the end of their child-bearing years

Estimating the Distribution of Undocumented Workers in the Urban Labor Force

Estimates the industrial distribution of undocumented labor force participants. Derived from the March 2001 Current Population Survey conducted by the Census Bureau

The Effect of Geographic Mobility on Male Labour-Force Particpants in the United States

We use both fixed-effects and random-effects regression models to measure the effect of geographic mobility on earnings of labor-force participants in the United States. The results support the human-capital hypothesis: six years after moving, real earnings of male labor-force participants are about 20 percent higher than they would have been had the move not occurred. Men younger than 40, and men with family-unit incomes no more than five times the poverty line, experience even larger benefits from moving. The geographic mobility that is characteristic of the United States’ flexible labor market, in general, is beneficial to the movers

The Labor Supply Effects of Welfare Reform

Will welfare reform increase unemployment and reduce wages? The answer depends in part on how much welfare reform increases labor supply. This paper considers the labor supply effects of the welfare reforms that have occurred since 1993, when President Clinton entered office with a promise to "end welfare as we know it." The paper reviews previous estimates, and provides new estimates, of how many additional labor force participants have entered the labor force due to welfare reform. I estimate that welfare reform from 1993-96 increased the U.S. labor force by between 100,000 and 300,000 persons. Between 1996, when the major federal welfare reform bill was enacted, and 1998, welfare reform has probably increased the U.S. labor force by at least another 300,000 persons. Assuming current policy trends continue, welfare reform may add another half-million to one-million labor force participants between 1998 and 2005. The cumulative impact of welfare reform from 1993-2005 is likely to add between one and one-and-a-half million persons to the U.S. labor force. This additional labor supply is not huge compared to the U.S. labor force, so welfare reform is unlikely to have large long-run effects on overall wages and unemployment. However, this additional labor supply is large compared to likely growth in labor demand for less-educated women over the 1993-2005 period. As a result, welfare reform is likely to have significant effects on the wages and unemployment rates of less-educated women during the 1993-2005 period.welfare, reform, labor, supply, Bartik

Noncompete Agreements in the U.S. Labor Force

Using nationally representative survey data on 11,505 labor force participants, we examine the use and implementation of noncompete agreements and the employee outcomes associated with these provisions. Approximately 18 percent of labor force participants are bound by noncompetes, with 38 percent having agreed to at least one in the past. Noncompetes are more likely to be found in high-skill, high-paying jobs, but they are also common in low-skill, low-paying jobs and in states where noncompetes are unenforceable. Only 10 percent of employees negotiate over their noncompetes, and about one-third of employees are presented with noncompetes after having already accepted job offers. Early-notice noncompetes are associated with better employee outcomes, while employees who agree to late-notice noncompetes are comparatively worse off. Regardless of noncompete timing, however, wages are relatively lower where noncompetes are easier to enforce. We discuss these findings in light of competing theories of the economic value of noncompetes

Extensions and rollbacks of US unemployment insurance benefits primarily affected how long people searched for work rather than job finding.

In 2010, the US government extended unemployment insurance benefits to a maximum of 99 weeks. This extension was rolled back in 2012 and 2013, and now no state has benefits available beyond the normal duration (26 weeks in general). In new research, Henry S. Farber, Jesse Rothstein, and Robert G. Valletta examine the impact of the extension and subsequent rollback of unemployment insurance. They find that the unemployment insurance extension did not substantially reduce the rate at which people found jobs, but did keep them as active labor force participants for longer

U.S. Earnings Mobility: Comparing Survey-Based and Administrative-Based Estimates

Earnings mobility has been studied both at the macro level (how much of a certain kind of mobility is there in the economy?) and at the micro level (what are the correlates of change in income or position?). Many empirical mobility studies provide estimates of the amount of mobility in a country over time and the correlates of individual mobility within the income distribution. While measurement error is recognized as potentially important at both these levels, very little is known about the degree to which earnings mobility estimates are affected by measurement error. In this paper, we use a new dataset that contains individually-reported total annual labor earnings from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) linked to employer-reported total annual labor earnings from the Social Security Administration’s Detailed Earnings Record (DER) to compare micro and macro earnings mobility estimates for the U.S. during the 1990s using the two different earnings measures. We ask how much difference it makes to mobility estimates to use administrative-based earnings rather than survey-based earnings, and we obtain two major findings. Qualitatively, we find that the results are similar but not identical when administrative-based earnings are used rather than survey-based earnings. Quantitatively, we find that magnitudes are often very different when administrative-based earnings are used rather than survey-based earnings. The administrative-based results are neither systematically larger nor systematically smaller than the survey-based ones

Returns for Entrepreneurs vs. Employees: The Effect of Education and Personal Control on the Relative Performance of Entrepreneurs vs. Wage Employees

How valuable is education for entrepreneurs' performance as compared to employees'? What might explain any differences? And does education affect peoples' occupational choices accordingly? We answer these questions based on a large panel of US labor force participants. We show that education affects peoples' decisions to become an entrepreneur negatively. We show furthermore that entrepreneurs have higher returns to education than employees (in terms of the comparable performance measure 'income'). This is the case even when estimating individual fixed effects of the differential returns to education for spells in entrepreneurship versus wage employment, thereby accounting for selectivity into entrepreneurial positions based on fixed individual characteristics. We find these results irrespective of whether we control for general ability and/or whether we use instrumental variables to cope with the endogenous nature of education in income equations. Finally, we find (indirect) support for the argument that the higher returns to education for entrepreneurs is due to fewer (organizational) constraints faced by entrepreneurs when optimizing the profitable employment of their education. Entrepreneurs have more personal control over the profitable employment of their human capital than wage employees.entrepreneurship, self-employment, returns to education, performance, personal control, locus of control, human capital, wages, incomes

Disability and Retirement: The Early Exit of Baby Boomers from the Labor Force

A CBO ReportCBO11_22_LaborForce.pdf: 177 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

The Economics of Home Production

The composition of the labor force has changed dramatically since 1960. In 1960, only one-third of the labor force participants were female. However, since the 1960s, the labor force rates of men have declined, from 83.3% to 75% as of 1995, while the participation rate for women has surged, from 37.7% in 1960 to 58.9% in 1995.1 The combination of rising labor force participation rates for women and falling rates for men has resulted in a work force that is approaching equal representation of each gender. However, the picture at home indicates a far greater gender stratification of work than that of the paid labor market