The vast majority of public employees--including teachers--are enrolled in defined-benefit pension plans. These plans are usually the product of state legislation that determines eligibility, benefit formulas, employer and employee contributions, and how payments will be calculated when an employee retires or leaves the system. Once an employee…

The tension at the heart of pension politics is the incentive to satisfy today's claimants in the here-and-now at the expense of long-term concerns. Rules and auditing standards are intended to tame this kind of short-sighted behavior in the private sector. In the public sector, the primary safeguard is the hope that public officials will not be…

A study of Albuquerque, New Mexico, provides insight into income stagnation and the future of the economy. Evidence confirms that the roots of the widening income gap are deep and the problem will not soon disappear. (JOW)

Provides background on the labor market problems motivating the Clinton-Reich initiatives on training and schooling and briefly summarizes the proposed strategies. It also considers evidence supporting or contradicting the plan's assumptions. (GLR)

The paper's main argument is that the rates of distributive injustice in industrial societies are significantly influenced by labor markets' institutional properties. Markets characterized by institutional properties that heavily favor capital at the expense of labor are expected to produce more distributive injustice--as well as more income…

If the immigration pattern of the 1970's persists in the 1980's, California can expect, annually, approximately 250,000 new immigrants, the majority from Latin America and Asia. Of these immigrants, concentrated in the working ages, 60 percent will be poorly educated and generally unskilled refugees and illegals and will be potentially heavy users…

This group of articles discusses a variety of studies related to social security and retirement benefits. These studies are related to both developing and developed nations and are also concerned with studying work conditions and government role in administering a democratic social security system. (SSH)

Argues that the economic and political structures of the immigrant receiving areas shape immigrant trajectories. Provides a comparative discussion that examines how the distinctive urban contexts of immigrant receiving areas, such as New York City and Los Angeles, differ in shaping immigrants' future prospects in assimilating within their new…

Discusses errors in appraisals of African-Americans' economic progress in recent history, in order to show that African-Americans have made little progress toward achieving economic equality. Considers the changing roles of African-American and European American women in the labor market as vital to interpreting economic status trends. (JS)

Despite current questions about the rate of return on educational investments, there is still a positive correlation between years of schooling and income, as well as job satisfaction. The real problem is not study and work; rather attention should be directed to the problem of nonstudy and work. (Author/AF)

Faulty laws, unfair practices, and years of tradition in the workplace keep women from economic equality. The Economic Equity Act proposed by Congress will address inequalities in tax and retirement matters, the need for better dependent care, nondiscrimination in insurance, regulatory reform, and child support enforcement. (IS)

This volume is the second in a set of two published as the 2008 Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. Planning for the volumes began more than five years ago, when the Society's Board of Directors expressed an interest in taking steps to encourage a more expansive, penetrating dialogue about education in democratic…

Recurring evidence that workers with similar skills do not necessarily earn the same wages led to the formulation of an alternative to the conventional market theory, namely, the segmented market theory. This theory posits that certain skills are distributed not among prospective employees but among jobs, in relation to the technology of those…

Although the distribution of income has become more equitable for some groups, inequitable distribution has affected the poor, minorities, and women most adversely. Income inequality and poverty may be attributed to ability differences, education and training, job tastes, property ownership, market power, and discrimination. In economics, the…

With inputs of labour and capital slowing, sustaining high growth rates in Korea will increasingly depend on total factor productivity gains, which are in turn driven to a large extent by innovation. While a number of Korean firms are at the world technology frontier in areas such as ICT, the diffusion of technology to lagging sectors is a…