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. . . economists across the ideological spectrum have paid little attention to the links between household family structure and the macroeconomic outcomes of nations, states, and societies. This is a major oversight because, as this report shows, shifts in marriage and family structure are important factors in states’ economic performance, including their economic growth, economic mobility, child poverty, and median family income.

“The high level of income inequality in the United States is at the forefront of policy attention. This paper focuses on one potential policy response: an increase in the top personal income tax rate. We conduct a simulation analysis using the Tax Policy Center (TPC) microsimulation model to determine how much of a reduction in income inequality would be achieved from increasing the top individual tax rate to as much as 50 percent. We calculate the resulting change in income inequality assuming an explicit redistribution of all new revenue to households in the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution. The resulting effects on overall income inequality are exceedingly modest.”

Men and women are more or less equally likely to have private health insurance, most often through their jobs. But young women are more likely to receive government health care, specifically Medicaid. Poor single mothers are especially likely to be eligible for Medicaid. But not so for men. More than a quarter of young men lack insurance at some ages, even as the overall share of uninsured has dropped to around 10%.

During the recession, the share of Americans with disabilities dropping out of the labor force increased. The same occurred with people younger than 65 who chose to retire. But the retiree figure returned to historical norms when the economy improved, while the figure for workers with disabilities continued to rise.

California’s workforce has undergone a number of large shifts over the last generation. The profile of who is working today differs in fundamental ways from more than three decades ago, and understanding these changes can inform how state policies could better promote the economic security of workers and their families. This “chartbook” highlights four key trends in how California’s workforce has changed and discusses what they mean for state policy.

Now a new UCLA study finds that of the 4 million adults in California who are 65 or older, 1.11 million struggle to make ends meet — an effective poverty rate of 28 percent. That’s more than triple the number of California elderly who were considered impoverished under standard federal measures.

Millions of workers who dropped out of the job market during the last economic slump were supposed to jump back in once things turned around. But more than six years after the Great Recession ended, the missing millions are increasingly looking like they’re gone for good..

More than 300,000 elderly Californians are officially poor, as measured by the federal government, but their numbers triple to more than 1 million when the “hidden poor” are counted, according to a new study from UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research.

About 5 million Californians departed the Golden State between 2004 and 2013, while 3.9 million arrived from other states for a net population loss of roughly 1.1 million, the Sacramento Bee reported Monday using tax-return data from the Internal Revenue Service.

According to a study released Monday by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, the U.S. economy now has about 1 million more jobs in occupations that rank in the top third of income and 800,000 more in the bottom third. The middle third, however, has yet to recover the jobs lost during the recession.

Not only does Fresno, vis-à-vis other large California cities, have one of the higher rates of poverty, but its poor residents are among the most isolated of any American city, regardless of race.

Although its overall population growth continues to slow, California’s senior population – those 65 and older – will nearly double in the next 15 years, a new report from the Public Policy Institute of California concludes.

We know that the economic recovery’s effects have been unevenly felt. The recovery has been kind to those who invested in certain stocks or whose title begins with the word “chief.” It’s been less charitable to certain groups, like African American workers, whose unemployment rates have lingered in the double-digits for most of the past eight years.

The report notes that the state’s renewable-energy mandates and carbon cap-and-trade program have forced electricity prices to rise, as they have implemented a “regressive energy tax, imposing proportionally higher costs in certain counties, such as California’s inland and Central Valley regions, where summer electricity consumption is highest but household incomes are lowest.”

For many decades, San Diego leaders held a vision of progress that we would argue is a narrow one–focused on a limited set of industries and built on a fragmented social and economic landscape. As a result, lines both literal and metaphorical have divided the region at every level