Moving recipients of public assistance into jobs is a goal of the current system for providing public assistance to low-income households. Using scenario analysis with a computable general equilibrium model, ERS researchers examined some of the labor market impacts of the "welfare-to work"...

Will increasing the minimum wage increase food prices as well? This study shows that a simulated $0.50 increase in the minimum wage, if entirely passed on to consumers, would have increased food prices by less than 1 percent for most of the foods at foodstores and by 1 percent at eating and...

Low skill levels among rural workers put rural manufacturing at a competitive disadvantage, according to the "skills shortage" theory. Data from the ERS Rural Manufacturing Survey, conducted in 1996, suggest that is not happening. Skill requirements are rising, but manufacturers who reported...

This report is an empirical inquiry into how poverty is changed by the macroeconomy. The analysis suggests low real wage rates and not the unemployment rate are the most important determinant of poverty in the long run. Changes in output and unemployment primarily affect cyclical or shortun...

The ERS Eating and Health Module, a supplement to the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), included questions on height and weight so that respondents’ Body Mass Index (BMI—a measure of body fat based on height and weight) could be calculated and analyzed with ATUS time-use data in obesity...

Meals, snacks, and beverages purchased at fast-food restaurants account for an increasingly large share of a typical American’s food budget and have been blamed for Americans’ expanding waistlines and poor diet quality. This study uses data from the 2003-11 American Time Use Survey to...