This paper examines the hypothesis that the extraordinarily highrates of unemployment among black youth can be linked to a geographic mismatch between the residences of black youth and the jobs they might occupy. Chicago's labor market is examined in detail. The paper reports that black youth do...

This paper examines the persistence and long-term impacts of early labor force experiences. The paper reports a rise in employment rates for a cohort of young men as they age, but points out that those persons with poor employment records early have comparatively poor records later. In order to...

This paper examines two questions: how will the labor force change over the next 20 years, and can social policy significantly alter its size and shape. In the last twenty years, the overall labor force grew by 35 percent and the so-called prime age workforce those aged 25-54 grew by a...

We study the impact of accountability pressure in Texas public high schools in the 1990s on postsecondary attainment and earnings, using administrative data from the Texas Schools Project (TSP). Schools respond to the risk of being rated Low-Performing by increasing student achievement on...

This paper reviews the current policies for fighting poverty and explores the impact they have had. We begin by reviewing trends in poverty, poverty spending and economic performance. It is immediately apparent that economic performance is the dominant determinant of the measured poverty rate...

This paper examines the dynamics of poverty. Previous analyses of the dynamics of poverty have either examined only fluctuations in the male heads earnings or looked at the frequency of poverty periods over a fixed time frame. We argue that a more appropriate way to understand the dynamics of...

In contrast to previous studies which have examined the impact of Right-to-Work (RTW) laws on the level or stock of union membership, this paper examines their impact on the most updated flow into membership and the organizing of workers through certified elections. Since detailed annual data...

This paper examines the changing employment patterns for young men and women aged 16 to 24 over the 1970s and pays particular attention to the widening racial differences. Between 1970 and 1980 employment rates for both black men and women in this age range fell roughly 14 points relative to...

This nontechnical paper was prepared as a background study for the NBER Conference on Youth Joblessness and Employment. Our analysis of data collected in the March 1976 and October 1976 Current Population Surveys leads us to the following conclusions: Unemployment is not a serious problem for...

This paper explores how the wage and career consequences of motherhood differ by skill and timing. Past work has often found smaller or even negligible effects from childbearing for high-skill women, but we find the opposite. Wage trajectories diverge sharply for high scoring women after, but...