Search Results
Briefing
Additional slack in the economy: the poor recovery in labor force participation during this business cycle
This public policy brief examines labor force participation rates in this recession and recovery and compares them with the cyclical patterns in earlier business cycles. Measured relative to the business cycle peak in March 2001, labor force participation rates almost four years later have not recovered as much as usual, and the discrepancies are large. ; Among age-by-sex groups, the participation shortfall is especially pronounced at young and prime ages: Only for men and women age 55 and older has participation risen more than is usual four years after the business cycle peak. ; The brief ...
Briefing
State government budgets and the Recovery Act
State and local governments, with revenues reduced sharply by the recession, are responding by cutting services, increasing tax rates, and drawing down reserves; they are also receiving some relief in the form of stimulus funds provided by the federal government. The stimulus funds legislated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act only partly offset the recession-induced shortfalls and are scheduled to phase out before most analysts believe state and local governments will see fiscal recovery well underway. Thus, observers are concerned that the state-local sector will create a ...
Journal Article
Growing inequality of family incomes: changing families and changing wages
It is widely known that the incomes of U.S. families became more unequal during the 1980s. The reasons for this rise, however, are not at all clear. Numerous factors have been implicated including slow growth, rising demand for highly educated workers, and shifts in family structure and family members' work patterns.> This article describes the 1973-94 increase in inequality of family incomes and related shifts in wage inequality, work trends, and family patterns. The author also examines patterns of inequality among the nine Census regions in the United States and differences in their ...
Discussion Paper
Wives' work and family income mobility
Over the past 30 years, married women in the United States have significantly increased their labor market activity and become an integral factor in their families? ongoing economic wellbeing. This change raises questions about the economic impact of two-earner families becoming the norm. Do American families now need both a working husband and a working wife to have any hope of getting ahead or to keep from falling behind? How much does a wife?s labor market activity (participation, hours, and earnings) matter in her family?s ability to make income gains, hold its place relative to other ...
Journal Article
Shifting property tax burdens in Massachusetts
Journal Article
Women's labor market involvement and family income mobility when marriages end
The last 30 years have seen a dramatic change in women's social and economic status in the United States, particularly in their labor market activity. When women were less involved and less successful in the labor market, many of them gained access to market income only or primarily through marriage or cohabitation with a working man. As a result, women and children were especially vulnerable to the death of a partner, separation, or divorce. ; In this article, the authors examine three decades of data on the relationship between women's labor market activity and the income mobility of ...
Journal Article
New England: the regional recovery
Journal Article
Equity in school finance: state aid to schools in New England
Perhaps the most widely held view of the Crash of 1987 is the Cascade Theory: the Despite the goal of equal access to comparable public education, spending disparities among school districts persist. All the New England states provide more school aid per pupil to poor districts than to rich districts. Nevertheless, districts with smaller per-pupil tax bases spend less per pupil and levy higher school tax rates than wealthier districts. Even in the two New England states with the smallest spending disparities, the richest one-fifth of the districts spend 20 percent more per pupil than the ...
Working Paper
Levels and trends in the income mobility of U.S. families, 1977−2012
Much of America?s promise is predicated on economic mobility?the possibility that people can move up and down the economic ladder during their lifetimes. Mobility is of particular consequence when economic disparities are increasing. Using panel data and mobility concepts and measures adapted from the literature, this paper examines 10-year income mobility levels and trends for U.S. working-age families during the time span 1977?2012. According to many measures, mobility, already limited in the 1978?1988 decade, declined over ensuing decades: families? later-year incomes increasingly depended ...
Journal Article
Education and wages in the 1980s and 1990s: are all groups moving up together?
A considerable body of economics research has described and investigated the educational wage premium-the degree to which highly educated workers are paid more than less educated workers. The payoff to education has risen steeply in recent decades and accounts for a significant fraction of the increase in overall wage inequality. These two facts have led many to conclude that, at least from an individual perspective, higher educational attainment is a passport out of the lower end of the income distribution. However, given the time and resources that both individuals and society are investing ...