Student debt is still rising for bachelor's degree recipients. In 2013, seven in 10 (69%) graduating seniors at public and private nonprofit colleges had student loans. These borrowers owed an average of $28,400 in federal and private loans combined, up two percent compared to their peers in 2012. Debt at graduation varies greatly by state and by…

The Hamilton Project's mission is advancing opportunity, prosperity, and growth. On both the individual and society-wide levels, a strong public education system enables Americans to achieve those objectives. Indeed, education has historically been the great equalizer and offered students of all backgrounds not the promise of equal outcomes but…

This working paper assesses the ease of immigrants' integration in OECD labour markets by estimating how an immigration background influences the probability of being active or employed and the expected hourly earnings, for given individual characteristics. Applying the same methodology to comparable data across twelve OECD countries, immigrants…

Adequacy lawsuits have, with little fanfare, emerged as a major alternative strategy in the pursuit of improved public education in the United States. Plaintiffs allege insufficient resources to provide students with the quality of education promised in their state's constitution, hoping the courts will step in and order the state to increase…

This booklet, prepared by the United States Chamber of Commerce, is intended to help create a better public understanding of how productivity affects this country and to suggest how people can change public policy in favor of a revitalized America. The booklet is organized in five sections. The first section defines productivity and introduces the…

After a brief discussion of conference background and structure, these proceedings identify and summarize equal pay and employment policy issues discussed at a four-day working conference of sixty-five people from twelve advanced industrialized countries. Focus is on progress to date and alternative strategies for implementing policies. Strategies…

On average, unemployed U.S. citizens remain jobless for much less time than their European counterparts do. The relatively low level of unemployment in the United States is attributable to two factors: a social protection system that offers far less protection than those in Western Europe do and a broad range of job openings. The fact that…

Advanced industrial economies face a work crisis in creating wage employment in a changing job market without greatly increased job inequality. There is a fundamental conflict between a deregulatory labor-market philosophy and policies intending to use educational expansion to increase employment with higher productivity and wages. Education and…

There are reports of current nurse shortages in all but a few OECD countries. With further increases in demand for nurses expected and nurse workforce ageing predicted to reduce the supply of nurses, shortages are likely to persist or even increase in the future, unless action is taken to increase flows into and reduce flows out of the workforce…

This volume is based on papers presented at a conference of social policy experts that looked at the growth in lone-parent families, the problems that have emerged, and their policy implications. Chapter 1 is an "Overview" (Duskin). Three chapters look at demographic trends over time and over the life-cycle; they are: "Demographic…

A study assessed the potential development of service sectors in different cities throughout the country and compared the results of growth in these and other sectors with respect to their effects on (1) total employment; (2) the geographic dispersion of metropolitan employment; (3) central city fiscal capacity; (4) metropolitan cyclical…

This book contains 14 original research chapters on various aspects of the employee benefits systems of Canada and the United States. Following an introduction by William Alpert and Stephen Woodbury and an overview chapter, "Does the Composition of Pay Matter?" (Sherwin Rosen), Part 1 of the book consists of three chapters that treat the…

As a followup to an earlier study, this report examines the numbers, motivations, characteristics, and labor market behavior of legal immigrants to the United States. The data used is from published and unpublished government statistics, a survey of 5,000 1970 immigrants, and interviews with 254 of the 1970 cohort. The first three chapters provide…

In the classic employment contract, especially at large companies, wages were not strongly responsive to the labor market. Instead, individual companies had distinctive company wage levels and patterns. An exhaustive study of employers and employees in the United States and Japan examined whether the "old employment contract" has been…

Education in the arts and humanities has always been important to the United States' arts and culture and to its competitiveness in a global economy. Providing all students with a complete education in the arts and humanities can help them cope with, and master, the fast-paced technological advances, forces of globalization, and major demographic…