This edition was written by Tara Watson and Jonathon Zars.
💡 New from us: Work earnings and work instability, fixing Social Security, skills-based hiring, and how the new census population estimates affect employment numbers
Unstable earnings and work hours come with hidden costs. Lauren Bauer, Chloe East, and Olivia Howard highlight that instability is a key feature of low-income workers' earnings and hours. While some flexibility in work schedules and earnings can be beneficial for low-income workers, this volatility is not always a choice. Compared to high-income workers with similar income volatility, low-income workers are 3.5 times more likely to report that this instability causes difficulties in paying bills and twice as likely to express a desire for more work hours. The proposed expansion of work requirements for Medicaid and other public assistance programs could exacerbate the negative impacts of unpredictable income.
Wendell Primus, Jack Smalligan, and Tara Watson recently released “Fixing Social Security: Blueprint for a Bipartisan Solution,” which details strategies to restore and strengthen the Social Security program's solvency. Current projections indicate that the program's retirement benefits fund will be depleted by 2033. The proposal includes expanding the definition of taxable income, increasing the labor force by broadening legal immigration pathways, and reducing certain future benefits. The plan avoids reducing benefits for current recipients, extends coverage to grandparents raising grandchildren, and continues to rely on payroll taxes for financing.
In a recent brief, Annelies Goger explores how states are approaching their goals of transitioning to skills-based hiring for their public sector positions and beyond. She describes the challenges and potential solutions to help employers make their hiring decisions when they don’t rely on degree requirements. Ultimately, successful skills-based hiring could lead to a more equitable, efficient, and accessible job market.
Immigrants today are much less likely to be incarcerated compared to U.S.-born residents. Rhetoric about the link between crime and immigration is nothing new, and a recent paper thoroughly debunks the myth.Using the first nationally representative long-run series of incarceration rates, the authors of this paper find immigrants have had lower incarceration rates than the U.S.-born for the last 150 years. Since 1960, immigrant incarceration rates have declined by 60% and this trend occurred among immigrants from all regions regardless of immigration policy.
Children of high-income parents are much more likely to work in high-paying jobs. Using census microdata and tax records, Catherine Haeck and Jean-William Laliberté document substantial segregation by parental income across children's occupations. For instance, 53% of physicians come from the top 20% of the parental income distribution, while only 6% come from the bottom 20%. The analysis reveals that occupational choices account for a significant portion of intergenerational income transmission, with children of high-income families disproportionately pursuing high-paying occupations, largely independent of their parents' occupations. This study underscores the importance of considering factors beyond schooling that contribute to income persistence across generations.
Test-optional policies may harm high-achieving applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds at elite universities. Bruce Sacerdote, Douglas O. Staiger, and Michele Tine useDartmouth College data to show that high-achieving, less advantaged applicants who submit test scores significantly improve their admission chances. For example, first-generation applicants can increase their admission probability by 2.4 times by submitting scores. At Dartmouth, SAT and ACT scores do a good job of predicting first-year college GPA across all demographic groups, while high school GPA and class rank do not. These findings suggest that test scores can promote social mobility, at least in the context of one selective university.
📊 Top chart: Winning the bread and baking it too
This month’s chart shows that while women’s working hours have increased substantially over the last five decades, there is no proportional change in the amount of housework men tend to report. In a recently published working paper, Kyle Hancock, Jeanne Lafortune, and Corinne Low examine home production and work hours. They find men’s housework doesn’t change with their wives’ earnings. They argue persistent gendered rigidities in the allocation of household tasks remain and penalize the overall production for heterosexual households where women out-earn men. Allocation of housework, rather than norms about earnings, may help explain declining marriage rates in contexts where men’s earnings are relatively low.
➡️ Worth a click
Check out this interactive examining whether pay has kept up with inflation over time and across sectors.
Listen to this podcast for context on the current outlook for immigration policy.
Explore this data visualization on which U.S. cities are experiencing the fastest economic growth and what it means for the nation.
UC Davis Center for Poverty and Inequality Research
Tuesday, February 25, 3:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. PST
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About the Center for Economic Security and Opportunity at Brookings
The Center for Economic Security and Opportunity (CESO) produces data-driven, nonpartisan analysis to address the United States’ most challenging social policy questions. In a noisy and polarized world, the Center is a trustworthy source for the information and tools policymakers need to build an economy that works for everyone.
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