This article reviews the existing literature on the economic and other benefits of attending community college. First, the article reports on the earnings gains across all students and reviews the evidence for subgroups by gender, minority status, and credits accumulated. The article then reviews the methodological challenges associated with…

Women have made slow, steady progress in the labor market since 1979, but the wage gap has not narrowed significantly. This briefing paper updates a September 1987 paper based on "Male-Female Differences in Work Experience, Occupations, and Earnings: 1984" (Current Population Reports, Household Economic Studies, Series P-70, No. 10, issued in…

The most prominent theories of unemployment that have emerged since 1960 are search, disequilibrium, implicit contracts, efficiency wage, and insider/outsider models. Search models assume that it takes time and effort for employers and potential employees to find each other. A "partial-partial" equilibrium approach focuses on one side of…

In policy debates, the U.S. education and training (ET) system is often blamed for the nation's eroding position in the world economy. Long-term international analysis reveals little evidence of deindustrialization or falling labor productivity. However, other industrial countries have caught up. Most economic research directly concerned with ET…

This critique of the "orthodox radical" interpretation of social classes argues that the predominance of middle- class wage earners and women moving into the nonmanual job market constitutes a departure from the traditional "working class". Better working conditions and wages are the nonmanual workers' incentives to ally themselves with…

A study of earnings differences between northern and southern states shows that white-collar workers in both areas now receive roughly equal pay. Women, blacks and blue-collar workers in the South still receive significantly lower wages than their northern counterparts. (AM)

Causes of the significant decrease in productivity growth and dramatic increase in unemployment in the United States since the mid-1960's are examined in order to test the underlying assumption of current economic policies that increasing capital savings and investments will create fuller and more productive employment. Data on trends in…

The human capital and growth accounting approaches to measuring the benefits of education both have serious weaknesses. Like other goods and services, educational services have effects on the economic well-being of individuals and families. Because the economic well-being effects of education include private marketed and non-marketed impacts as…

Studies of 29 welfare reform initiatives conducted by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation were synthesized in an exploration of how welfare and work policies affect employment and income. Each of the studies reviewed focused on one or more of the following key program features: mandatory employment services, earnings supplements, and…