Search Results
Working Paper
Minimum Wage Increases and Vacancies
Using a unique data set and a novel identification strategy, we estimate the effect of minimum wage increases on job vacancy postings. Using occupation-specific county-level vacancy data from the Conference Board’s Help Wanted Online for 2005-2018, we find that state-level minimum wage increases lead to substantial declines in existing and new vacancy postings in occupations with a larger share of workers who earn close to the prevailing minimum wage. We estimate that a 10 percent increase in the state-level effective minimum wage reduces vacancies by 2.4 percent in the same quarter, and ...
Journal Article
Does health care reform support self-employment?
Health insurance access can influence individuals' labor market decisions. Some economists argue employer-provided health insurance may have deterred entrepreneurship, as self-employed individuals may have faced difficulties in obtaining coverage. As the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is gradually implemented, the reform might affect individuals' decisions to become or remain self-employed. Tuzemen and Becker examine a similar reform, the Massachusetts Health Care Reform Act, as a case study for the PPACA. They find the uninsured rate declined in Massachusetts following ...
Working Paper
Minimum Wage Increases and Vacancies
Using a unique data set and a novel identification strategy, we estimate the effect of minimum wage increases on job vacancy postings. Utilizing occupation-specific county level vacancy data from the Conference Board’s Help Wanted Online for 2005-2018, we find that state-level minimum wage increases lead to substantial declines in existing and new vacancy postings in occupations with a larger share of workers who earn close to the prevailing minimum wage. We estimate that a 10 percent increase in the state level effective minimum wage reduces vacancies by 2.4 percent in the same quarter, ...
Working Paper
Self-employment and health care reform: evidence from Massachusetts
We study the e ect of the Massachusetts health care reform on the uninsured rate and the self-employment rate in the state. The reform required all individuals to obtain health insurance, required most employers to o er health insurance to their employees, formed a private marketplace that o ered subsidized health insurance options and ex- panded public insurance. We examine data from the Current Population Survey (CPS)for 1994-2012 and its Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplement for 1996-2013. We show that the reform led to a dramatic reduction in the state's uninsured rate due to ...
Working Paper
Minimum Wage Increases and Vacancies
We estimate the impact of minimum wage increases on the quantity of labor demanded as measured by firms’ vacancy postings. We use proprietary, county-level vacancy data from the Conference Board’s Help Wanted Online to analyze the effects of minimum wage increases on the quantity of labor demanded. Our identification relies on the disproportionate effects of minimum wage hikes on different occupations, as the wage distribution around the binding minimum wage differs by occupation. We find that minimum wage increases during the 2005–18 period led to substantial declines in vacancy ...
Journal Article
Were Teleworkable Jobs Pandemic-Proof?
While the majority of pandemic-related job losses have been in occupations where working from home was not possible, work-from-home or “teleworkable” jobs were not pandemic-proof. In addition, the number of teleworkable jobs lost and recovered differed by workers’ sex and education status. Both college-educated and non-college-educated women experienced larger employment losses and slower recoveries in teleworkable jobs than their male counterparts.
Journal Article
Opportunity knocks: improved matching of jobs and workers
Tzemen and Willis illustrate that over the past year, workers found jobs more closely matched to their educational attainment.
Working Paper
Health-care reform or labor market reform? A quantitative analysis of the affordable care act
An equilibrium model with firm and worker heterogeneity is constructed to analyze labor market and welfare implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly called the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The authors? model implies a significant reduction in the uninsured rate from 22.6 percent to 5.6 percent. The model predicts a moderate positive welfare gain from the ACA because of the redistribution of income through health insurance subsidies at the exchange as well as the Medicaid expansion. About 2.1 million more part-time jobs are created under the ACA at the expense of ...
Working Paper
Job Polarization and the Natural Rate of Unemployment in the United States
I present a new estimate of the natural rate of unemployment in the United States that accounts for changes in the age, sex, and skill composition of the labor force. Using micro-level data from the Current Population Survey for the period 1994-2017, I find that the natural rate of unemployment declined by 0.5 percentage point since 1994 and currently stands at 4.5 percent. My projections show that ongoing demographic and technological changes could lower the trend rate further to 4.4 percent by the end of 2022.
Journal Article
Labor Market May Remain Tight until Labor Demand Cools Further
U.S. labor demand—measured by job openings or vacancies—has started to cool but is still elevated compared with pre-pandemic levels. At the same time, labor supply—measured by the labor force participation rate remains below pre-pandemic levels. This weakness in the labor force participation rate may persist, as it reflects lower participation among older individuals. Accordingly, the imbalance between demand and supply in the labor market may continue until labor demand cools further.