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…

Employment is foundational to young people's successful transition into adulthood, yet many youth with lived experience in the foster care system struggle to obtain employment that provides a living wage. Youth with foster care experience typically do not have the same contacts and connections to employment opportunities as youth who have not been…

Career and technical education (CTE) programs play a vital role in preparing high school students for life after graduation. The Carl D. Perkins Act of 2006 (Perkins) requires states that receive federal CTE funding to align secondary and postsecondary programs, so that students can transition seamlessly from a high school CTE program to a…

Paraeducators perform multiple roles in U.S. classrooms, including among others preparing classroom activities, working with students individually and in small groups, supporting individualized programming for students with disabilities, managing classroom behavior, and engaging with parents and communities. Yet, little research provides insights…

After a long decline, the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) of older men in the United States leveled off in the 1980s, and began to increase in the late 1990s. We examine how changes in Social Security rules affected these trends. We attribute only a small portion of the decline from the 1960s-80s to the increasing generosity of Social…

This Congressional report contains the testimony given at a hearing pertaining to passage of the Youth Employment Opportunity Wage Act of 1985. (The act, which would terminate in September 1987, would authorize an employer to pay a subminimum, "youth employment opportunity wage" to a person under 20 years of age.) Included among those…

(1) Estimates of the "typical" industrial distribution of fluctuations in total U.S. Employment about long run trends are provided with evidence of secular drift that results in employment becoming less sensitive to changes in G.N.P. (2) A Model is presented to analyze the effects of minimum wage legislation with uneven industrial coverage on the…

A study examined the effects of the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit (TJTC) program on the employment and earnings of disadvantaged persons. Three outcomes--average quarterly wages, average number of quarters employed, and average wages during employed quarters--were studied for various categories of disadvantaged persons (economically disadvantaged…

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 order to predict the earnings of single mothers under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program and the success of welfare reform in reducing poverty, a study was conducted of single mothers' work behavior, welfare receipt, and other sources of income. Data were generated from the U.S. Census Bureau's Survey of Income and…

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 contains controversial provisions to allow temporary "replenishment" farmworkers to enter the United States to harvest perishable crops. This paper describes the role of legal and illegal foreign workers in California agriculture in relation to these provisions and the assumptions on which…

The article summarizes the 1975 Manpower Report chapters on: the employment and unemployment record; achievements and open issues of public service employment; changing role of women; CETA Progress report; Program responses to manpower needs; manpower impact of government policy and procedure; and Report of the Secretary of Health, Education, and…

Examines how recently legalized immigrants differ from all foreign-born persons and native-born whites in wage mobility, and explores whether wages improve as they acquire more U.S. experience. Census data demonstrate positive returns in regard to U.S. experience for undocumented immigrants and all foreign-born men. (SLD)

Includes "Introduction" (Ehrenberg); "Effect of the Minimum Wage [MW] on the Fast-Food Industry" (Katz, Krueger); "Using Regional Variation in Wages to Measure Effects of the Federal MW" (Card); "Do MWs Reduce Employment?" (Card); "Employment Effects of Minimum and Subminimum Wages" (Neumark,…

A study assessed the success of Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) programs by examining current approaches, featuring operational and experimentally based measures, all using the individual as the unit observation. The research used Program Year 1990 JTPA termination and associated program participation records in Illinois and Texas. Two…