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Journal Article
The Employment Effect of an Increase in the National Minimum Wage: Review of International Evidence
Increasing the federal minimum wage gradually and steadily may help minimize negative employment effects.Recent U.S. proposals to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $15 per hour have not yet come to fruition. One challenge in implementing minimum wage increases is estimating the potential effect on employment. Past increases in the federal minimum wage have been modest and are unlikely to provide much insight into employment effects. International experiences with large minimum wage increases may provide more insight by accounting for greater variation in firm exposure ...
Journal Article
The Employment Effect of an Increase in the National Minimum Wage: Review of International Evidence
Increasing the federal minimum wage gradually and steadily may help minimize negative employment effects.Recent U.S. proposals to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $15 per hour have not yet come to fruition. One challenge in implementing minimum wage increases is estimating the potential effect on employment. Past increases in the federal minimum wage have been modest and are unlikely to provide much insight into employment effects. International experiences with large minimum wage increases may provide more insight by accounting for greater variation in firm exposure ...
Working Paper
Where Did the Workers Go? The Effect of COVID Immigration Restrictions on Post-Pandemic Labor Market Tightness
During the COVID pandemic there were unprecedented shortfalls in immigration. At the same time, during the economic recovery, the labor market was tight, with the number of vacancies per unemployed worker reaching 2.5, more than twice its pre-pandemic average. In this paper, we investigate whether these two trends are linked. We do not find evidence to support the hypothesis that the immigration shortfalls caused the tight labor market for two reasons. First, at the peak, we were missing about 2 million immigrant workers, but this number had largely recovered by February 2022 just as the ...
Journal Article
The Shifting Expectations for Work from Home
As COVID-19 moves to an endemic state, employers have brought workers back to the office. Many workers prefer to continue working from home a portion of time, resulting in a gap between employee preferences for work from home and employer plans. Knowing who currently works from home a larger share of time and where this gap is narrowest across worker characteristics and locations helps explain where and for whom work from home is most likely to remain a permanent feature in the labor market.Using a relatively new data source, the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, Jason P. Brown ...
Report
Self-Employment and Labor Market Risks
I study the labor market risks associated with being self-employed. I document that the self-employed are subject to larger earnings fluctuations than employees and that they frequently transition into unemployment. Given that the self-employed are not eligible to unemployment insurance, I analyze the provision of benefits targeted at these risks using a calibrated search model with (i) precautionary savings, (ii) work opportunities in paid and self-employment, and (iii) skill heterogeneity. This exercise suggests that extending the current U.S. unemployment insurance scheme to the ...
Report
Occupational Licensing and Labor Market Fluidity
We show that occupational licensing has significant negative effects on labor market fluidity defined as cross-occupation mobility. Using a balanced panel of workers constructed from the CPS and SIPP data, we analyze the link between occupational licensing and labor market outcomes. We find that workers with a government-issued occupational license experience churn rates significantly lower than those of non-licensed workers. Specifically, licensed workers are 24% less likely to switch occupations and 3% less likely to become unemployed in the following year. Moreover, occupational licensing ...
Journal Article
Why Are Prime-Age Men Vanishing from the Labor Force?
The labor force participation rate for prime-age men (age 25 to 54) has declined dramatically in the United States since the 1960s, but the decline accelerated more recently. In 1996, 4.6 million prime-age men did not participate in the labor force. By 2016, this number had risen to 7.1 million. Better understanding these men and the personal situations preventing them from working may be crucial in evaluating whether they are likely to return to the labor force. {{p}} Didem Tzemen documents changes in the nonparticipation rates of prime-age men with different demographic characteristics as ...