Some economic observers argue “structural unemployment” has increased in the wake of the Great Recession, but in this paper we find little support for either of two arguments that suggest that structural unemployment has been on the rise. The first argument focuses on the large increase in...

The unemployment rate is expected to average 10.2 percent for 2010, 9.1 percent for 2011, and 7.3 percent for 2012. With this in mind, this Issue Brief describes a job sharing tax credit, designed to provide a quick and substantial boost to the economy. It would use tax dollars to pay firms to...

Economists are increasingly coming to the recognition that the current downturn is likely to be longer and more severe than they had expected at the time the last stimulus package was approved in February. As a result, there is likely to be interest in additional stimulus in order to boost the...

Following the most recent recession, an attempt has been made to explain current levels of unemployment as resulting from structural unemployment, or a mismatch between the skills of the unemployed and the types of jobs available. The evidence, however, indicates that the issue is actually a...

About 7.4 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) work in the United States, making up 5.3 percent of the total U.S. workforce. About 7.1 million of these AAPI workers are Asian Americans; about 300,000 are Pacific Islanders. The AAPI workforce is almost 20 times larger today than...

This report reviews the characteristics of the immigrant workforce and analyzes the impact of unionization on the pay and benefits of immigrant workers. According to the most recent available data, immigrant workers are now over 15 percent of the workforce and almost 13 percent of unionized...

Asian Pacific American (APA) workers are, with Latinos, the fastest growing group in the U.S. workforce and in organized labor. Since the late 1980s, APA workers have seen their representation in the ranks of U.S. unions almost double, from about 2.5 percent of all union workers in 1989 to about...

This report uses national data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to show that unionization raises the wages of the typical service sector worker by 10.1 percent compared to their non-union peers. The study goes on to show that unionization also increases the likelihood that a service...

This report uses national data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to show that unionization raises the wages of the typical woman worker by 11.2 percent compared to their non-union peers. The study goes on to show that unionization also increases the likelihood that a woman worker will...

Synthesizing previous CEPR research, this report uses a new methodology to better assess the economic security of working families. Rather than using the federal poverty line as a metric for a family's economic hardship, the authors of this report use basic family budgets and consider the role...