The United States has long been the top destination country for migrants worldwide, though if the European Union, Norway and Switzerland were a single country it would outrank the U.S. as a destination for international migrants. But the U.S. and Europe are quite different when it comes to their migrant populations’ origin countries. In 2015, … Continue reading
Workers turn to social media for a range of reasons while at work, with taking a mental break being among the most common Today’s workers incorporate social media into a wide range of activities while on the job. Some of these activities are explicitly professional or job-related, while others are more personal in nature. The … Continue reading
The U.S. is projected to have no racial or ethnic group as its majority within the next several decades, but that day apparently is already here for the nation’s youngest children, according to new Census Bureau population estimates. The bureau’s estimates for July 1, 2015, released today, say that just over half – 50.2% – … Continue reading
Who is licensed? Using the newly released Bureau of Labor Statistics data, it is possible to describe licensed workers and then examine a number of important economic implications of licensing. Licensing varies substantially by occupation. Legal, education, and healthcare occupations feature licensing at particularly high rates, as shown in Figure 1. Note that the increase … Continue reading
This paper focuses on recent high school (age 17–20) and college graduates (age 21–24) who are not enrolled in further schooling. We analyze their employment, enrollment, and wage trends in order to glean the Class of 2016’s economic prospects as they start their careers. Due to the progression of the economic recovery and a substantial … Continue reading
Over the last decade, the growth rate of real G.D.P. per person has averaged just 0.44 percent per year, compared with the historical norm of 2.0 percent. At a rate of 2.0 percent, incomes double every 35 years. At a rate of 0.44 percent, it takes about 160 years to double. via One Economic Sickness, … Continue reading
As a share of the total working-age adult living in poverty population: 18 percent —a third of the non-workers living in poverty—are disabled. 26 percent—just under half of non-workers—are caregivers or students. 6 percent are retired, though it is important to note that only the working-age population is considered here, so this constitutes early retirement. … Continue reading
Almost two-thirds of students who enter community colleges every year are judged to be academically not ready to engage in college-level coursework. In order to enroll, these students typically must take one or more “remedial” or “developmental” math or English courses that will not count toward their college degree. The students most likely to be … Continue reading
Fed officials, and other economists, have been grappling with the divergence between relatively weak reported economic growth and relatively strong job growth. Those at the Fed have largely taken the view that labor market data is more accurate, which has been true over time. Wrong Direction The Federal Reserve created an index to better measure … Continue reading
Workers in America’s oil and gas patches have enjoyed some of the country’s biggest gains in the buying power of their paychecks over the past decade and a half, while workers in several small and mid-sized manufacturing-oriented cities have watched their buying power shrink over the same time period. A Pew Research Center analysis of federal … Continue reading
A recent Pew Research Center analysis of census data found that in 2014, for the first time in more than 130 years, 18- to 34-year-olds in the U.S. were more likely to be living in their parents’ home than with a spouse or partner in their own household. A closer analysis of the data helps … Continue reading
Households in the highest income quintile received a little more than half of total before-tax income and paid more than two-thirds of all federal taxes in 2013 (see Figure 1). Households in other income groups received considerably smaller shares of before-tax income and paid considerably smaller shares of federal taxes. Furthermore, the share of taxes … Continue reading
Three million young people are neither in school nor working, finds a report released today by the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. These “disconnected youth” are primarily people of color. In some metros, black and Latino youth are up to six times more likely to be disconnected than young whites. The report, “Employment and disconnection among … Continue reading
The decline in labor force participation rates has been widely documented, but the growing gulf in the work gap between the bottom third and the rest of the population is truly striking:While the share of men who are employed in the top two-thirds has been quite stable since 1980, lower-income men’s work rates have declined … Continue reading
Few industries have been affected by the digital or information age as much as newspapers and other traditional publishing industries (books, magazines, etc.). In June 1990, there were nearly 458,000 people employed in the newspaper publishing industry; by March 2016, that figure had fallen to about 183,000, a decline of almost 60 percent. Over the … Continue reading