Search Results
Journal Article
The Unequal Impact of COVID-19: Why Education Matters
Since COVID-19 hit the United States, more than 20 million American workers have become unemployed and countless others have left the labor force altogether. While the labor market disruptions have affected workers in a wide set of industries and occupations, those without a college degree have experienced the most severe impact. Addressing gaps in educational attainment will be important to creating better economic resiliency for individuals against future shocks.
Working Paper
The Economic Gains from Equity
How much is inequity costing us? Using a simple growth accounting framework we apply standard shift-share techniques to data from the Current Population Survey (1990-2019) to compute the aggregate economic costs of persistent educational and labor market disparities by gender and race. We find significant economic losses associated with these gaps. Building on this finding, we consider which disparities generate the largest costs, paying specific attention to differences in employment, hours worked, educational attainment, educational utilization, and occupational allocation. We also examine ...