This Letter examines how changes in wealth and credit may be affecting household and aggregate labor supply.

Although the pace of layoffs appears to be subsiding and the overall economy is showing hints of stabilization, most forecasters expect unemployment to continue to increase in coming months and to recede only gradually as recovery takes hold. In this Economic Letter, we evaluate this projection...

Although the labor market has slowly begun to recover, unemployment remains stubbornly high. The pace at which unemployment comes down over the next two years depends in part on the cyclical recovery of labor force participation and the extent to which that offsets or adds to ongoing structural...

Unemployment insurance benefits have been on an upward trend over the past two decades, partially reversing an earlier decline. The trend is associated with shifts toward a higher share of job losers among the unemployed and longer durations of unemployment, which may cause benefits to lapse for...

In the 1990s, social expectations of single mothers shifted towards the notion that most should, could, and would work, if given the proper incentives. This shift in expectations culminated in the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996, commonly...

In the 1990s, social expectations of single mothers shifted towards the notion that most should, could, and would work, if given the proper incentives. This shift in expectations culminated in the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996, commonly...