Search Results
Journal Article
The State of the COVID-19 Crisis in the U.S.
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard says that simple risk mitigation strategies hold the promise of delivering higher household incomes along with lower fatalities from COVID-19.
Journal Article
Geographic Mobility and Consumer Financial Health: Evidence from Oil Production Boom Towns
One way a household might handle financial distress is to relocate to another area that offers greater income opportunities. This article examines the impact of geographic mobility on consumer finances by focusing on the residents of ?boom towns??areas that saw a surge of growth in oil-drilling activity around 2010 and a bust thereafter. We find that residents who move after the bust experience stronger consumer financial health than residents who stay put.
Working Paper
Does Medicaid Generosity Affect Household Income?
Almost all recent literature on Medicaid and labor supply has used Affordable Care Act (ACA)-induced Medicaid eligibility expansions in various states as natural experiments. Estimated effects on employment and earnings differ widely due to differences in the scope of eligibility expansion across states and are potentially subject to biases due to policy endogeneity. Using a Regression Kink Design (RKD) framework, this paper takes a uniquely different approach to the identification of the effect of Medicaid generosity on household income. Both state-level data and March CPS data from ...
Journal Article
Developments in Household Liabilities Since the 1990s
The ratio of household liabilities to income increased from the mid 1990s to 2010, driven by an increase in the supply of loans that outpaced loan demand.
Journal Article
Shifting Dynamics in Eighth District Cities
From 2017 to 2018, the cities of St. Louis, Little Rock, Louisville and Memphis had better commute times and cheaper housing but higher income inequality and lower median household incomes.
Working Paper
Low-Income Consumers and Payment Choice
Low-income consumers are not only constrained with spending, but also with the type and variety of payment methods available to them. Using a representative sample of the U.S. adult population, this paper analyzes the low possession (adoption) of credit and debit cards among low-income consumers who are also unbanked. Using a random utility model, I estimate the potential welfare gains associated with policy options suggested in the literature to provide subsidized and unsubsidized debit cards to this consumer population.
Report
Educational assortative mating and household income inequality
We document the degree of educational assortative mating, how it evolves over time, and the extent to which it differs between countries. Our analysis focuses on the United States but also uses data from Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Norway. We find evidence of positive assortative mating at all levels of education in each country. However, the time trends vary by the level of education: Among college graduates, assortative mating has been declining over time, whereas individuals with a low level of education are increasingly sorting into internally homogeneous marriages. These ...
Working Paper
Do Minimum Wage Increases Benefit Intended Households? Evidence from the Performance of Residential Leases
Prior studies debating the e?ects of changes to the minimum wage concentrate on impacts on household income and spending or employment. We extend this debate by examining the impact of changes to the minimum wage on expenses associated with shelter, a previously unexplored area. Increases in state minimum wages signi?cantly reduce the incidence of renters defaulting on their lease contracts by 1.29 percentage points over three months, relative to similar renters who did not experience an increase in the minimum wage. This represents 25.7% fewer defaults post treatment in treated states. To ...