Using data from the 1994 through 1998 Consumer Expenditure Surveys, we compare household spending on 16 different goods (food at home, food away from home, housing, transportation, alcohol and tobacco, interest, furniture and appliances, home maintenance, clothing, utilities, medical care,...

Women and men tend to work in different occupations. Although a great deal of research has been devoted to the measurement of trends in occupation segregation by gender, very little work has focused on the underlying job choice process that generates this segregation. What makes men and women...

Estimates of labor market inequality usually focus only on wages, even though fringes account for almost one-third of total compensation. Using data from the Current Population Survey, I analyze coverage by own-employer health insurance coverage among full-time workers for women versus men,...

I use data from the Current Population Surveys and Employee Benefits Surveys to analyze employer-sponsored disability insurance coverage. There does not appear to be a systematic trend from 1980 to 2000 in the fraction of workers with coverage. Disability insurance coverage rates are lower than...

We examine how a key provision of the Affordable Care Act--the expansion of Medicaid eligibility--affected health insurance coverage, access to care, and labor market transitions of unemployed workers. Comparing trends in states that implemented the Medicaid expansion to those that did not, we...

This study examines the effect of a Medicaid disenrollment on employment, sources of health insurance coverage, health, and health care utilization of childless adults using longitudinal data from the 2004 Panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation. From July through September 2005,...

The effectiveness of tax-favored savings accounts in raising national savings depends crucially upon the willingness of households to reduce consumption in order to finance contributions to these accounts. The debate over the tax deductibility of IRA's has centered on whether IRA contributions...

We analyze data from the Health and Retirement Study on senior citizens' take-up of Medicare Part D. Take-up among those without drug coverage in 2004 was high; about fifty to sixty percent of this group have Part D coverage in 2006. Only seven percent of senior citizens lack drug coverage in...

Employer health insurance mandates form the basis of many health care reform proposals. Proponents make the case that they will increase insurance, while opponents raise the concern that low-wage workers will see offsetting reductions in their wages and that in the presence of minimum wage laws...

In August, September and October of 2005, the Monthly Surveys of Consumers fielded by the University of Michigan included questions about the happiness of a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. The date of each interview is known. Looking at the data week by week, reported happiness...