This book examines the nature of the workforce development and UI policy decisions made nationwide in response to the recession, state and local administrators’ perspectives on the policy developments and economic challenges, and implementation of key Recovery Act provisions, with a particular...

The high incidence of temporary agency employment among participants in government employment programs has catalyzed debate about whether these jobs help the poor transition into stable employment and out of poverty. We provide direct evidence on this question through analysis of a Michigan...

During the recent recession, workers were eligible for UI benefits only if they were laid off in most states. At the start of the recent recession only 17 states offered short-time compensation (STC)—pro-rated unemployment benefits for workers whose hours are temporarily reduced for economic...

Tax evasion. Illegal drugs. Overseas holdings of U.S. currency. Crime. What these issues have in common is their contribution to the underground economy, that multi-billion dollar entity prospering unofficially outside the realm of the conventional economy. Individually, the six contributors to...

Using a variety of data sources, the contributors explore how performance standards and incentives affect the behavior of public managers and agency employees, their approaches to service delivery, and ultimately, the outcomes for participants.

Despite tremendous recent interest in the subject of student debt by both researchers and policymakers, little is known about how the distribution of college graduate debt has been evolving and what factors can explain it. We use National Postsecondary Student Aid Study data from 1990 through...

Barnow, Trutko, and Piatak focus on whether persistent occupation-specific labor shortages might lead to inefficiencies in the U.S. economy. They describe why shortages arise, the difficulty in ascertaining that a shortage is present, and how to assess strategies to alleviate the shortage.