Decades of evidence suggest this premise is correct: Asset ownership generally improves the well-being of families and provides an irreplaceable rung on the ladder to a stable place in the middle class. Even so, the share of households owning a home or other assets has fallen over the last decade, particularly among vulnerable groups like […]
Now automation affects the US workforce is largely a question of which jobs and activities can be most easily automated. At a macro level, change will take time to occur. It’s not likely that a million truck drivers will be thrown out of work in the next few years, because the technologies to automate these […]
In 2015, average household income before accounting for means-tested transfers and federal taxes was $20,000 for the lowest quintile and $292,000 for the highest quintile. After transfers and taxes, those averages were $33,000 and $215,000.
A labor force participation rate that is at or above its long-run trend is consistent with a labor market at or above full employment. In 2018, the estimated rate is at its trend of 62.8%, suggesting that the labor market is at full employment. Studying the population’s demographic makeup and labor trends for different groups […]
Unless you’ve been hibernating in the Himalayas, you must know of the recent surge in economic inequality. It’s not just that the rich are getting richer. The rest of us — say politicians, pundits and scholars — are stagnating. The top 1 percent have grabbed most income gains, while average Americans are stuck in the […]
A May 2017 survey collected information about workers who were in four alternative employment arrangements—people employed as independent contractors, on-call workers, temporary help agency workers, and workers provided by contract firms. These data were collected in a special supplemental survey to the Current Population Survey, the monthly household survey that provides information on employment and […]
Even in a unionized environment, where work tasks are similar, hourly wages are identical, and tenure dictates promotions, female workers earn $0.89 on the male-worker dollar (weekly earnings). We use confidential administrative data on bus and train operators from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) to show that the weekly earnings gap can be explained […]
There are few issues, if any, more important than income and poverty. The most successful political jurisdictions, where national or sub national, are characterized by rising incomes and falling rates of poverty. A large and growing middle-class is key to that. But measuring the size and trend of the middle-class is easier said than done. […]
Labor force participation among U.S. men and women ages 25 to 54 has been declining for nearly 20 years, a stark contrast with rising participation in Canada over this period. Three-fourths of the difference between the two countries can be explained by the growing gap in labor force attachment of women. A key factor is […]
The tide of medical-marijuana legalization making its way through American states is leading to a notable uptick in the birth of babies, according to a new paper published by the National Bureau for Economic Research. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 33 states and Washington, D.C., allow the once verboten drug to be […]
About 130,000 more residents left California for other states last year than came here from them, as high costs left many residents without a college degree looking for an exit, according to a Bee review of the latest census estimates. They most often went to cheaper, nearby states – and Texas. Since 2001, about 410,000 […]
Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, I find that the ratio in standard net worth NW between African-Americans and (non-Hispanic) whites was the same in 2007 as in 1983 (0.19) but then fell to 0.14 in 2016. The wealth ratio between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites climbed considerably between 1983 and 2007, from 0.16 […]
So there it is – seemingly unleavened good economic news. Record numbers of Californians are working and earning livings for themselves and their families. However, there are some dark clouds on the horizon. For one thing, data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal that California has one of the nation’s highest rates of […]
A NIMBY group may be satisfied with stopping a housing project in their neighborhood but I wonder if they realize that their efforts are discriminatory – creating displacement and relegating people of color to areas of greater poverty. According to a recently released study, that’s exactly what those efforts produce. The study, conducted by the […]
For most of the last two decades, the share of women participating in the U.S. labor force was in decline, puzzling demographers and economists since female participation was rising in many other developed economies. Thanks to a strong economy, that long-running decline shows signs of reversing. Labor-force participation among prime-age U.S. women aged 25 to […]