In making monetary policy, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) relies in part on the Beige Book, a report on regional economic conditions released publicly about two weeks before each FOMC meeting. The Beige Book summarizes economic conditions in each of the twelve Federal Reserve districts...

Employment in the information technology (IT) field rose rapidly during the late 1990s. Many IT employees are foreign born and are working in the United States with H-1B visas-temporary nonimmigrant visas issued for terms of up to six years. Critics of the H-1B program contend that it reduces...

In recent years, economic prognosticators have pondered whether the U.S. economy has entered a new era characterized by technological innovations that have raised productivity and, accordingly, removed pricing power from producers. Although the 2001 recession quelled debate about whether the...

The growing influx of immigrants into the United States has prompted concerns about potential negative effects on native workers, especially the less skilled. Such concerns have not been borne out by many studies of the effect of immigration on wages. However, the typical theoretical negative...

In recent years, the media has devoted considerable attention to the effects of downsizing and corporate restructuring on U.S. workers. Economists as well as the media have focused in particular on the plight of laid-off, or "displaced," middle-aged workers. Because many displaced workers incur...

When the Federal Open Market Committee began raising interest rates in June 1999 to forestall inflationary pressures, concern mounted that monetary policy moves might slow the pace of economic growth, undoing the employment gains minorities and other disadvantaged groups made during the 1990s....

Although both real wages and productivity have been growing at relatively slow rates during the last two decades, some measures indicate that earnings have failed to keep up with productivity growth. The slowdown in real wage growth is important to workers and their families because their...

Recent research has challenged the conventional wisdom among economists that increases in the minimum wage reduce employment among low-wage workers. Although some studies continue to find negative effects, others suggest that moderately raising the minimum wage may not reduce employment. The...