A college education raises incomes for all workers, but black workers see smaller increases than others.Education ; Income

Miriam Wasserman

English

Research Papers in Economics

illustration by martina witte Regional Review Q1 2002 1
On pins and needles
in the early 1800s, it took 14 hours
to hand sew a man’s dress shirt and over
10 hours for a simple dress. Thankfully
by the 1850s, sewing machines had re-
duced these times to just 1.25 hours and
1 hour, respectively. Since the price of
readymade apparel dropped 51 percent
since 1970, in large part because of inexpen-
sive imports, the tedious chore of sewing one’s
own clothes has become unnecessary, even for
penny-pinchers. Furthermore, as women have
joined the workforce, they have more income
and less time, making the thrifty home sewer
seemingly obsolete. 
But according to Anna Mazur, president of
the Connecticut chapter of the American
Sewing Guild, “The cream of the crop is still
doing it.” A 2000 Home Sewing Association
survey of adult women found that 31 million
American women sew, including 30 percent
of women under 45. Seventy-five percent of
them do it for recreation and relaxation,
sewing crafts, home decorations, quilts, or
embroidery. Reflecting the shift from chore to
hobby, in 1998 the Bureau of Labor Statistics
began classifying sewing machines as “Recre-
ation” instead of “Apparel and Upkeep” in the
calculation of the Consumer Price Index. 
Though most of today’s sewers are just hav-
ing fun, there are still cost advantages to
sewing clothes, particularly with high-quali-
ty fabrics and items where the fit is difficult
or important, such as evening gowns and
suits. A suit made with natural-fiber fabric
may retail for $1,200 in Nordstrom’s, and still
require tailoring, while the same suit could be
sewn to fit for less than $500, says Mazur. 
But between 1992 and 1997, sales declined
25 percent in “sewing, needlework, and piece
goods” stores; 2,000 of them closed. Dedi-
cated sewers increasingly have to shop along-
side other hobbyists, as retailers such as Han-
cock Fabrics and JoAnn Stores have survived
by tapping into the broader $23 billion crafts
industry and by stocking more home-deco-
rating merchandise such as silk flowers and
custom frames. The strategy seems to be
working. Cathleen Campbell of the Home
Sewing Association reports that the number
of Chapter 11s and 13s filed by
supply stores has “all but
stopped” since the late 1990s.
Meanwhile, the American
Sewing Guild attracted 2,000
new members last year, and
classes such as “Learn to Sew
Clothes!” and “Getting to
Know Your Sewing Machine”
at the Boston Center for Adult Education
have been filling quickly, says instructor
Eleanor Mason of the Traveling Tailor, Inc.
Apparently, bobbins and thimbles are here to
stay. —kristin lovejoy
Education pays (for some more than others) 
Education is a passport out of the lower end of the income distribution. The higher
the education, the higher the salary. Indeed, the payoff to education has risen
steeply in recent decades. The real wages of full-time workers with a college degree
grew an average of 14 percent between 1979 and 2000. In contrast, wages of work-
ers with only a high school diploma fell by 7 percent. But the fact that education
leads to increased income does not mean that higher education by itself will let
those whose wages have lagged behind catch up, according to Boston Fed econo-
mist Katharine Bradbury.
At the end of the 1990s, blacks not only earned lower wages at each education
level, but they also
received a smaller
payoff for graduating
from high school or
earning a college
degree than other-
wise similar workers.
In 2000, a black man
working full-time
saw a 40 percent
increase in wages by
attaining a college
degree. A similar
worker of another
race enjoyed an even
greater boost with a
note: Estimates reflect full-time weekly wage differences associated with race and educational attainment for
men who are otherwise similar in terms of usual work hours (within the full-time category), marital and family
status, potential work experience, geographic region, occupation, and industry.
source : “Education and Wages in the 1980s and 1990s: Are All Groups Moving Up Together?” New England
Economic Review Q1 2002.
growing apart
$0
$200
$400
$600
$800
estimated weekly wages by highest degree attained
High school
degree
$1,000
Bachelor’s
degree
Master’s,
professional,
or doctorate
High school
degree
Bachelor’s
degree
Master’s,
professional,
or doctorate
1999–2000 1979–1980
black men nonblack men
(continued next page)
observations2 Regional Review Q1 2002 photographs by mary kocol
Observations
continued from previous page
44 percent increase. Twenty years earlier,
by contrast, all men working full-time
received less than a 20 percent increase in
wages, on average, by going from a high-
school degree to a college diploma. Though
returns to education rose for women too,
black women also saw the payoff to an
additional degree rise more slowly over the
past two decades than it did for their non-
black counterparts.
What causes these differences is not
clear. Some of the disparity may be due
to discrimination. But it could also be the
result of other factors, such as differences
in the quality of education that blacks typi-
cally receive relative to other workers.
Though education remains the best ticket
to higher wages, “the incentives created by
these differential growth paths and differen-
tial current payoffs augment the disadvan-
tages that blacks have long faced in the
U.S. labor market,” notes Bradbury.
—Miriam Wasserman
3FROM READERS 
Another prescription?
Carrie Conaway’s article, “Diagnosis:
Shortage” (Q4 2001), was excellent, except
it left out one important reason for the
shortage of registered nurses. 
Foreign countries, particularly the
Philippines, train nurses (in English) specifi-
cally to enable them to work abroad. From
1952 to 1995, the United States brought
in more than 100,000 of these nurses to
work in hospitals on temporary visas. Due
to union pressure, the temporary visa pro-
gram was eliminated in 1995. Restoration
would help to relieve pressure on over-
worked nurses and increase the nurse-to-
patient ratio at beleaguered U.S. hospitals.
The solutions that Ms. Conaway men-
tioned in her article will take time and
money. Restoration of the temporary visa
program for RNs would take effect immedi-
ately, and at no cost to the taxpayers.
Carl Shusterman
Certified Specialist
Immigration and Nationality Law
Los Angeles, California
A NEW ENGLAND APPROACH TO
PRESERVING OPEN SPACE
by Richard W. England § During the past
decade, land-use issues have received con-
siderable attention throughout the United
States. Phrases such as “smart growth,”
“compact development,” and “sprawl”
have begun to enter our political lexicon.
These concerns rose to the forefront in
1999 when the National Governors’ Asso-
ciation called for preservation of open space
and encouragement of growth in existing
communities across the nation.
In New England, these issues have particular resonance.
The region’s identity is rooted in its distinctive landscape—
the spectacular beauty of its mountains, seashore, forests, and
farmland. But New England is also known for the unique
character of its many cities and towns, and the tradition of
local autonomy and strong municipal government is an im-
portant aspect of the region’s charm. Some have argued that
preserving our natural landscape will entail sacrificing some
local authority, particularly over land use and zoning. Perhaps
we can try to preserve both the region’s civic and physical ter-
rains by taking a distinctly New England approach.
THE NATURAL LANDSCAPE
New England faces its own distinctive land-use issues. On
the one hand, a rate of population growth far lower than the
national average means that the region has confronted less in-
tense pressure to develop its rural landscape. Even New
Hampshire’s population, by far the fastest-growing in New
England during the 1990s, grew more slowly than the U.S.
population as a whole. 
But by other measures, New England may face more seri-
ous land-development issues than most other regions. Con-
necticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island have already de-
veloped more than 30 percent of their land areas; New
Hampshire has built up 10 percent. By contrast, only 6 per-
cent of the nation’s acreage has been converted. This means
that the social benefits of preserving open space are especial-
ly high in the region’s densely populated southern states.
Also worrisome is New England’s rapidly declining pop-
ulation density in its devel-
oped areas. Between 1982 and
1997, the average number of
perspective
The region’s challenge:to preserve 

Observations: education pays (for some more than others)

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Observations: education pays (for some more than others)

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