This project will research how effective basic and universal labor standards are at reducing group inequality by looking at a major amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1966, which extended federal minimum wage coverage to several new industries. The expansion occurred at a time when the federal minimum wage was 40 percent higher in real terms than it is today. The newly covered industries were concentrated in services, retail, and agriculture, sectors with disproportionately high shares of women and black workers. The project proposes to take advantage of the scale of the reform and the racial and gender composition of treated industries to test the effects of high minimum wages and their ability to close the gender and racial wage gaps. This research promises to increase our understanding of the effects of introducing a high wage floor and whether universal federal labor standards can effectively reduce the racial and gender wage gaps.

This project looks at how the political enfranchisement of a group affects economic outcomes of those within that group. There are several mechanisms through which this could occur: Politicians might favor a newly enfranchised group in policymaking to earn their votes; the newly enfranchised group might find public-sector employment; or members of the group might run for and win a seat in office. Aneja and Avenancio will examine how African American enfranchisement through the Voting Rights Act affected a variety of economic outcomes for blacks in southern states. They will use a differences-in-differences approach, looking at bordering counties in states that were and were not subject to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Although this study focuses on Civil Rights-era outcomes, the results will be relevant today, as states pass laws that could depress voter turnout among minority groups.

This project proposes to utilize administrative data from Washington state to study the impact of Seattle’s paid sick time ordinance on three specific research questions. First, how has the ordinance impacted earnings, hours, employment levels, and earnings volatility of workers covered by the new paid sick time law? Second, what share of worker volatility is due to within-job volatility (volatility due to changes in hours) versus between-job volatility (volatility from job turnover) as a result of the paid sick time ordinance? Third, do the above effects vary for workers in different firms, industries, firm sizes, and wage-rate employment subgroups? This work will add to what we know about the impacts of mandated employer-provided paid sick leave, including illuminating whether employer-mandated paid sick leave has employment effects and on whom. Wething’s study of earnings volatility has the potential to provide important evidence on the mechanism through which paid sick leave is impacting employment outcomes, including whether and how this might impact worker well-being and firm productivity.

This study will look at a key statistic for understanding wage rigidity: the rigidity of the wages of new hires. Theoretically, the wage level of new hires is important for making sense of variations in hiring across the business cycle. But there isn’t much empirical research on this statistic. Hazell is using data from online job vacancy postings to build a statistic that accounts for the changing composition of posted jobs as the labor market slackens and tightens.

This research project tackles questions about how gentrification-driven property redevelopment impacts black-owned businesses compared to white-owned businesses. Gentrification studies have largely ignored businesses in favor of examining residences, but commercial enterprises play a key role in shaping neighborhood conditions. Focusing on Detroit, this sociological study combines an analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Business Owners with qualitative interviews and archival research to analyze how black-owned businesses' growth, inclusion, and access to resources compares to that of white-owned businesses during periods of local redevelopment.

This project investigates what role mentoring can play in economic mobility for disadvantaged youth. To answer the question, Bell plans to link tax records to a dataset of youth applicants to a Big Brothers Big Sisters youth mentoring program. Early economic thinking on the intergenerational perpetuation of disadvantage focused primarily on financial channels. Recent work, however, including some funded by Equitable Growth, has highlighted the importance of childhood environments as a key determinant of success. An initial study found significant positive social outcomes among youth who received mentorship at the close of the 18-month Big Brothers Big Sisters program. Outcomes of interest include college attendance, income and employment, teenage birth, incarceration, and reliance on government assistance. This project will build on Bell’s earlier work with Chetty et al. that shows children who grow up near inventors are not only more likely to become inventors, but also are more likely to invent in similar technologies. A better understanding of the role of social exposure will help identify mechanisms of mobility.