This research promises to advance our understanding of employment scarring by empirically teasing out the racial differences in long-term consequences of deep U.S. economic downturns for those who are relatively young when a recession hits. Focusing on the 1980 recession, which was both deep and long, the author will use a triple-difference approach to examine the recession’s long-run effects by comparing the incomes in adulthood of teens (ages 14 to 17) and young adults (ages 18 to 22) (first difference), living in counties with a more-severe versus less-severe recessions (second difference), who are Black or Hispanic versus White (third difference). Using the differences in the severity of the recession across local areas as an identifying variation, the author will utilize individual-level data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth in 1979, along with county-level location data with special access from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The 1980 recession is far enough in the past to allow a study of the outcomes of the sample when individuals are in their mid-30s to mid-40s years of age. This research is poised to provide insight into the long-run effects of recessions on Black and Hispanic youth who resided in regions where the recession was deepest, adding nuance to our understanding of the “scarring” effects of recessions on young workers by adding a racial component. Givin the current economic situation, it is clear why this research is relevant to current policy debates.

This project will construct a database of new work from 1900 to 2020 by compiling a list of job titles from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Alphabetical Index of Occupations. Previous research on “new work” measures the introduction of new job titles beginning in 1964 and documents that new work is performed by high-skilled workers and in cities. Preliminary work in this project indicates that at least some of these previously documented patterns may not have been true in the middle of the 20th century. The authors’ aim is: to chart the evolution of new work over 12 decades; to assess the potentially varying importance of new work in job creation and skill demands during different epochs in this period; and to test a set of economic hypotheses about where and when new work arises. The project has the potential to provide insight into why the locus of job creation, measured in terms of occupations, industries, skill demands, and wage levels has varied across decades, and the role of new technologies in the creation of new work. In addition to compiling job titles from U.S. Census data, the researchers will link the text of patents to new job titles to explore the impact of new technologies on jobs, and will link to the Consumer Expenditure Survey to measure demand shifts for the relatively recent period (from 1980 onward) to test the hypothesis that demand shifts may lead to new work.

Recent research finds that most, if not all, of the growth in earnings inequality in the United States may be explained by the growth in inequality across firms or establishments. This finding is consistent with research showing that workers in outsourced establishments—such as call centers, janitorial service companies, or security services—receive lower pay and benefits than those workers doing the same jobs but who are employed by lead or primary firms. But our knowledge of the extent and impact of outsourcing on a broader set of workers is limited, in large part because of data constraints. This study will provide evidence based on rigorous, quantitative analysis of the extent to which outsourcing has contributed to inequality in the United States. The study will rely on Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics data linked with American Community Suvey data and will use the methodology established in a previous paper based on German data. A key shortcoming of the LEHD data is that it does not have information on occupation. By linking to ACS data, the authors will be able to observe occupation for a subset of those in the LEHD dataset and to assess the effects of outsourcing on outcomes besides earnings—most critically, health insurance.

Previous research indicates that wealth inequality in the United States has increased since the mid-20th century and is much higher than income inequality. Wealth inequality is particularly worrisome since wealth provides many advantages, including securing against shocks and transferability to the next generation. Yet despite the relevance of wealth for our understanding of inequality and mobility, available data on wealth inequality is limited. This project will make an important contribution by drawing on tax data linked to external data on housing equity to overcome the limitations of survey data and by linking these data across generations within families and by generating geographic aggregates at small-scale geographical levels. This will allow the author to answer pressing questions, such as how concentrated wealth is locally and the stickiness of the wealth distribution across generations.

Research shows how important college is to upward economic mobility. Yet there are many barriers to getting into and completing college, most notably cost. Community colleges are frequently touted as a cost-effective path, whereby students begin at a community college and then transfer to a 4-year university. This research focuses on transfer students and Wisconsin’s Promise Tuition grants, a place-based scholarship which offers debt-free tuition assistance. Over the past decade, more and more states and postsecondary institutions are offering such grants, yet there is virtually no research that focuses on their impact on transfer students, particularly transfer students’ degree completion. This project explores the intersection between transfer students, their perceptions related to college finances, and the design of Promise Tuition scholarships and grants by using a mixed methods study. The first part utilizes student-level administrative data from the University of Wisconsin to examine course-taking patterns, credits attempted and completed, Grade Point Average, persistence rates, financial aid eligibility and receipt, and degrees conferred. The second part is a survey of a random sample of transfer students in order to elicit information regarding college experiences and finances. This rich case study promises to inform not only policy debates around college affordability and completion, but also our understanding of how the institutional structures of postsecondary education in the United States are supporting or inhibiting intergenerational mobility.

This historical analysis focuses on whether racial discrimination by firms led to underprovision of content for minorities in the U.S. radio market in the post-war Jim Crow era and whether competition in the market reduced the racial divide. More specifically, the researcher looks at how the entry of television in local markets in the 1950s and 1960s affected programming for Black audiences. Using Federal Communications Commission annual financial reports, directories of radio stations, and the National Opinion Research Center’s 1944 and 1946 racial attitude surveys, the author will analyze how and if discrimination played a role in firms’ programming decisions.