The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented economic and policy challenges to the United States and other countries. Navigating out of the pandemic slowdown is another novel experience, which makes it more difficult to answer the question addressed each year in the "State of Working Pennsylvania": How is the Pennsylvania economy…

Tom Wilson, the chair of the executive committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce published an op-ed titled "Save Capitalism by Paying People More." Wilson acknowledges in blunt terms that ordinary working Americans are not flourishing economically. This year's annual "The State of Working Pennsylvania" documents the accuracy of…

The United States and Pennsylvania economies are at a pivot point: Will we build forward better or will we build back the same? Will we make things even worse? This report revisits the policy choices that lie ahead. Most of this annual checkup on the Pennsylvania economy, the 26th "State of Working Pennsylvania," presents labor market…

A study examined whether point of entry into the work force affects earnings growth and employment stability. The Pennsylvania Regional Economic and Social Information data set (a 5% sample of workers whose wages were reported to the state's unemployment insurance program in 1969-1991) served as the study population. Analyses of the earnings…

A study examined the earnings losses suffered by a group of experienced workers who separated from their firms in the early and mid-1980s. The quarterly earnings histories of a large number of Pennsylvania workers covering the period 1974 through 1986 merged with employment information about their firms served as the data set. Workers' earnings…

This book contains eight papers examining the evidence from three field experiences in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Washington that were conducted to identify the impact of reemployment bonuses on the following indicators characterizing the unemployment insurance (UI) program: weeks of UI receipt during the benefit year; dollars of UI received…

The effectiveness of state enterprise zone programs was examined by using a hypothetical-firm model called the Tax and Incentives Model-Enterprise Zones (TAIM-ez) model to analyze the value of enterprise zone incentives to businesses across the United States and especially in the 13 states that had substantial enterprise zone programs by 1990. The…