Male and female prime-age labor force participation rates have declined in the U.S. at a faster rate than in most developed countries over the past 20 years, even among people with a college degree. Stark differences in health outcomes, incarceration rates, and labor market, maternity and child-care policies provide potential explanations for the disproportionate participation-rate […]
Thus Mr. Caplan’s case against education begins by acknowledging the case in favor of getting one. “It is individually very fruitful, and individually lucrative,” he says. Full-time workers with a bachelor’s degree, on average, “are making 73% more than high-school graduates.” Workers who finished high school but not college earn 30% more than high-school dropouts. […]
The Golden State was one of seven with a 4-point increase in 8th grade reading, which enabled it to come within 3 points of the national average. But this joyful moment is dampened by the reality that even with the improved scores, 69 percent of California 4th graders are not proficient in English, compared to […]
In a signal that California’s economic engine could be slowing after a remarkable run, the state lost 7,200 net jobs last month and increases in February were far less than originally estimated, according to data released Friday by the Employment Development Department. The decline was the first in nearly two years and follows a disappointing […]
Kings County officials this week traveled to the Southern California town of Gardena to meet with executive staff of Faraday Future as well as company founder Jia Yuetin to help make plans for the startup’s Hanford assembly plant. Demolition work on the interior of the old Pirelli facility in the Hanford Industrial Park is underway […]
House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway on Thursday will introduce a farm bill, though food stamps absorb much of the cost. More than 40 million Americans are in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the official name for food stamps, and the figure is up from about 17 million in 2000. The size of the benefits has […]
There was a bit of good news for California in the federal government’s latest round of academic test results: it’s one of seven states that registered four-point gains in reading comprehension among eighth-graders. But that positive morsel in the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) testing of fourth- and eighth-graders released this week was […]
Led by strong scores in 8th-grade reading, California moved closer to the national averages in reading and math, continuing a decade-plus trend of generally slow but steady improvement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The closely watched assessment released its 2017 results for 4th and 8th grades on Tuesday. . . . In 4th-grade […]
Manufacturing, long the sick patient in the U.S. economy as multinationals outsourced jobs, has added nearly 300,000 positions since the November 2016 election, increasing payrolls in 16 of the past 17 months. That included 22,000 positions last month. Overtime hours are up and orders are on the rise, making the current stretch among the strongest […]
MissionU, which enrolled its first class in September, is part of new breed of institutions that bill themselves as college alternatives for the digital age. The schools—whose admission rates hover in the single digits—comparable to the Ivy League, according to the schools—offer a debt-free way to attain skills in hot areas and guaranteed apprenticeships with […]
California was one of just 10 states to post statistically significant increases in eighth-grade reading. In 2015, the average reading score for California eighth-graders was 259 on the 500-point test. In 2017, the average was 263. . . . Otherwise, the state’s scores on the test were flat, which the state Dept. of Education downplayed.
American students had nearly flat results in math and reading on a national exam, continuing a pattern of stagnation over most of the past decade, as some of the lowest performers fell further behind. Eighth-graders made the only statistically significant gain—1 point—in reading, for an average score of 267 out of a possible 500, according […]
In forthcoming research, my colleagues and I find that minimum wages are counterproductive, leading to higher poverty and an increased reliance on public assistance in disadvantaged neighborhoods. The EITC, in contrast, reduces poverty and dependence on public assistance, with one caveat: It may be less effective in severely disadvantaged neighborhoods where there is insufficient labor […]
The University of California and the California Community Colleges agreed Wednesday that students who do well in courses that UC faculty helped develop will be admitted to a UC campus, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The agreement will apply to students who begin community college in fall 2019. The courses will lead to an associate […]
The number of Americans claiming new unemployment benefits has never been so low for so long. Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs across the U.S., decreased by 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 233,000 in the week ended April 7, the Labor Department said Thursday. This means claims have now held below 300,000 for 162 […]