American Association of University Professors (AAUP) members are likely to be familiar with the 1960 adaptation of Howard Fast's "Spartacus" by Stanley Kubrick and Dalton Trumbo, a rousing Kirk Douglas production widely credited with breaking the Hollywood blacklist. They are a bit less likely to be among the five or six million weekly viewers of…

A central organizing framework of the voluminous recent literature studying changes in the returns to skills and the evolution of earnings inequality is what we refer to as the canonical model, which elegantly and powerfully operationalizes the supply and demand for skills by assuming two distinct skill groups that perform two different and…

When he was still President Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, now mayor-elect of Chicago, famously quipped: "Never allow a crisis to go to waste." Republican governors in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Ohio, and other states have certainly taken that advice to heart. By emphasizing, and in some cases manipulating, the red ink flowing through…

Problems faced by the developmental disability service system in recruiting and retaining direct support staff are exacerbated by demands from competing service industries, including long term supports for the increasing aging population in the United States. Many factors account for high turnover and vacancy rates in the community service system,…

In a recent paper, Garcia-Mainar and Montuenga-Gomez [Garcia-Mainar, I. & Montuenga-Gomez, V. M. (2005). Education returns of wage earners and self-employed workers: Portugal vs. Spain. "Economics of Education Review, 24"(2), 161-170] apply the generalized IV model of Hausman and Taylor to estimate education returns of wage earners…

This is a response to [Jordahl, H., Poutvaara, P., & Tuomala, J. (2009). Comment on education returns of wage earners and self-employed workers. "Economics of Education Review" 28]. We acknowledge that econometrics have improved since the time our original paper was written, so that the choice of accurate instruments is now more…

In their reply to our comment, Garcia-Mainar and Montuenga-Gomez [Garcia-Mainar, I., & Montuenga-Gomez, V. M. (2009). A response to the comment on education returns of wage earners and self-employed workers. "Economics of Education Review"] did not address our fundamental criticism that they have not provided the information…

This article addresses the design and application of cost adjustments in state school finance policies intended to compensate local public school districts for differences in the costs of recruiting and retaining teachers. Broadly speaking, the state policy objective for including cost adjustments to state aid for such things as teacher cost…

Women earn only 64 cents for every dollar earned by men. Five and a half million women number among the "working poor." The following are suggested for change: (1) raise the minimum wage; (2) institute gender- and race-blind pay scales; (3) establish child care centers; and (4) enforce anti-discrimination laws. (PS)

This document contains transcripts of United States Senate hearings of March, 1981, on the Youth Opportunity Wage Act of 1981. The proposed Act would set a lower minimum wage for work performed by youth under the age of 20; and extend the allowable lower wages to be paid in other industries besides the food service and retail industries where they…

Presents results of a survey that ranks occupations by earnings. 1981 data is presented for the earnings of 247 occupations, each employing at least 50,000 wage and salary workers full time. The figures relate earnings from wages and salaries only; earnings from self-employment are not included. (SSH)

The demand for child care in the United States continues to grow, but child care workers' wages remain minimal. Using examples within New Jersey, the author demonstrates how low wages impact child care quality and are directly related to the effects of the competitive marketplace. Various historical, regulatory, and cultural contexts also…

It is the thesis of this booklet, one of a series intended to apply economic principles to major social and political issues of the day, that minimum wage laws actually hurt those whom such laws are designed to help. From this point of departure, separate subsections examine economic implications of minimum wage laws, including discussion of what…

Rigidity is setting in that obscures reasonable discussion of the imperfections of a free market where women's wages are concerned, and increases the likelihood that comparable worth, if implemented, might substitute one set of arbitrary job evaluations for another. (MLW)

Investigates influences on occupational earnings by estimating a standard human capital equation across 175 occupational classifications, using mean 1969 male earnings as the dependent variable. The author finds it significant that the highest paid occupations included manager and self-employed groups while low paying ones included service and…