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Journal Article
Unemployment Insurance Withdrawal
Unemployment insurance benefits were expanded substantially to help overcome the pandemic labor market shock in early 2020. However, improved labor market conditions in early 2021 prompted many states to withdraw from the enhanced unemployment benefits programs several months before the federal program was scheduled to end in early September. A comparison of states that ended enhanced benefits early with those that maintained them suggests that the withdrawal is associated with a small pickup in employer hiring, consistent with prior studies that found the unemployment benefit expansions had ...
Journal Article
Did the $600 Unemployment Supplement Discourage Work?
People receiving unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 recession were entitled to $600 of additional payments per week through July. This large increase in benefit payments raised a concern that recipients would delay returning to work. However, analysis suggests that the available aid would not outweigh the value of a longer-term stable income in workers’ decisions to accept job offers. Evidence from recent labor market outcomes confirms that the supplemental payments had little or no adverse effect on job search.
Working Paper
Replicating and Projecting the Path of COVID-19 with a Model-Implied Reproduction Number
We fit a simple epidemiology model to daily data on the number of currently-infected cases of COVID-19 in China, Italy, the United States, and Brazil. These four countries can be viewed as representing different stages, from late to early, of a COVID-19 epidemic cycle. We solve for a model-implied effective reproduction number Rt each day so that the model closely replicates the daily number of currently infected cases in each country. Using the model-implied time series of Rt, we construct a smoothed version of the in-sample trajectory which is used to project the future evolution of Rt and ...
Journal Article
Breakeven Employment Growth
Employment growth has consistently come in above pre-pandemic estimates of the rate needed for unemployment to stay near its long-run natural rate. Even so, unemployment has held steady, which raises the question of whether the “breakeven” employment growth rate has changed. In the short-run, recent surges in immigration and labor force participation have caused the current breakeven employment growth rate to rise as high as 230,000 jobs per month. However, the long-run breakeven employment growth rate appears unchanged, ranging around 70,000 to 90,000 jobs per month.
Journal Article
To Retire or Keep Working after a Pandemic?
Workers age 55 and older left the labor force in large numbers following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Four years later, participation within this age group has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, despite the strongest labor market in decades. This has resulted in an estimated shortfall of nearly 2 million workers. Analysis shows that the participation shortfall is concentrated among workers in this age group without a college degree and can be explained by increased and growing retirement rates for this group, above pre-pandemic trends.
Journal Article
Changes in labor participation and household income
The percentage of people active in the labor force has dropped substantially over the past 15 years. Part of this decline appears to be the result of secular factors like the aging of the workforce. However, the participation rate among people in their prime working years?ages 25 to 54?has also fallen. Recent research suggests this decline among prime-age workers can be attributed in large part to lower participation from among the higher-income half of U.S. households.
Journal Article
An Unemployment Crisis after the Onset of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the U.S. labor market, with massive job losses and a spike in unemployment to its highest level since the Great Depression. How long unemployment will remain at crisis levels is highly uncertain and will depend on the speed and success of coronavirus containment measures. Historical patterns of monthly flows in and out of unemployment, adjusted for unique aspects of the coronavirus economy, can help in assessing potential paths of unemployment. Unless hiring rises to unprecedented levels, unemployment could remain severely elevated well into next year.
Journal Article
Finding a Soft Landing along the Beveridge Curve
As U.S. economic growth slows this year, a key question is whether job openings can fall from historical highs without a substantial rise in unemployment. Analyzing the current Beveridge curve relationship between unemployment and job openings presents a meaningful possibility that labor market pressures can ease and achieve a “soft landing” with only a limited increase in unemployment. This view is supported by high rates of job matching in the U.S. labor market in 2022, despite ongoing employment reallocation across industries.
Working Paper
From Deviations to Shortfalls: The Effects of the FOMC’s New Employment Objective
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) recently revised its interpretation of its maximum employment mandate. In this paper, we analyze the possible effects of this policy change using a theoretical model with frictional labor markets and nominal rigidities. A monetary policy that stabilizes employment “shortfalls” rather than “deviations” of employment from its maximum level leads to higher inflation and more hiring at all times due to firms’ expectations of more accommodative future policy. Thus, offsetting only shortfalls of employment results in higher inflation, employment, ...
Working Paper
UI Generosity and Job Acceptance: Effects of the 2020 CARES Act
To provide economic relief following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. CARES Act granted an extra $600 per week in unemployment insurance (UI) benefit payments from late March through July 2020. This unprecedented increase in UI generosity caused weekly benefit payments to exceed prior earnings for most recipients, raising concern that many would be unwilling to accept job offers, slowing the labor market recovery. To assess the impact of the UI supplement, we analyze the job acceptance decision in a dynamic framework in which job seekers weigh the value of a job against remaining ...