Search Results
Working Paper
Vocational Considerations and Trends in Social Security Disability
Along with health, Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) evaluates work-limiting disability by considering vocational factors including age, education, and past work experience. As the number of SSDI applicants and awards has increased, these vocational criteria are increasingly important to acceptances and denials. A unique state-level dataset allows us to estimate how these factors relate to the SSDI award process. These estimates are used to asses how changes to the demographic and occupational composition have contributed to awards trends. In our results, the prevalence of workers ...
Ensuring That Your Voice Is Heard
Amanda Michaud, an economist and research officer at the St. Louis Fed, talks about life as an economist and her research on criminal justice policies and labor markets.
Working Paper
Quits, Layoffs, and Labor Supply
We develop a time series of quits and layoffs using the Current Population Survey, and analyze their relationship with labor supply decisions over the business cycle. Our findings challenge the assumption that most labor force exits from employment are voluntary quits. Instead, we show that 40% of these exits are precipitated by layoffs. With this distinction, we find both quits to non-participation and the share of workers exiting after a layoff falls during recessions. A workhorse search model is used to frame how these facts add nuance to our understanding of business cycles. Additional ...
Journal Article
Safe Occupations Are Growing
Health problems and disability claims have declined in the fastest-growing occupations.
Working Paper
Assessing Maximum Employment
We suggest a core set of indicators for evaluating the position of the labor market relative to maximum employment. The unemployment rate remains the key indicator of the cyclical position of the labor market, as it is time-tested, is highly correlated with other indicators, and has practical measurement advantages. But other indicators can provide complementary evidence to get a fuller picture of the labor market. A joint analysis of job vacancies and unemployment in a Beveridge curve diagram is helpful when structural shocks affect the labor market and when the labor market is very tight, ...
Working Paper
Assessing Maximum Employment
We suggest a core set of indicators for evaluating the position of the labor market relative to maximum employment. The unemployment rate remains the key indicator of the cyclical position of the labor market, as it is time-tested, is highly correlated with other indicators, and has practical measurement advantages. But other indicators can provide complementary evidence to get a fuller picture of the labor market. A joint analysis of job vacancies and unemployment in a Beveridge curve diagram is helpful when structural shocks affect the labor market and when the labor market is very tight, ...
Working Paper
Online Appendix: Dynamics of Deterrence: A Macroeconomic Perspective on Punitive Justice Policy
This online appendix accompanies Institute Working Paper 101: Dynamics of Deterrence: A Macroeconomic Perspective on Punitive Justice Policy.
Journal Article
Expanded Unemployment Programs Likely Slowed the Decline in Unemployment Claims During the Pandemic Recovery
The typical Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claimant claimed 9.5 to 11.5 more weeks of benefit payments than an individual claiming through regular state programs.
Working Paper
Dynamics of Deterrence: A Macroeconomic Perspective on Punitive Justice Policy
We argue that transitional dynamics play a critical role in evaluating the effects of punitive incarceration reform on crime, inequality, and labor markets. Individuals’ past choices regarding crime and employment under previous policies have persistent consequences that limit their responsiveness to policy changes. We provide novel cohort evidence supporting this mechanism. A quantitative model of this theory, calibrated using restricted administrative data, predicts nuanced dynamics of crime and incarceration that are distinct across property and violent crime and similar to the U.S. ...