This paper examines the relationship between the cost of living and median household income. The hypothesis is that there is a positive correlation between the two variables, where the median income is higher in areas with a higher cost of living. Variables such as water, electricity, energy, and rent were utilized in order to obtain a well-rounded cost of living factor and then compared to the median household income. Evidence suggests this hypothesis to a certain extent. While there is a positive correlation, the increases are not simultaneous.

A critical problem facing the health of the U.S. is the opioid epidemic which has been unfairly addressed due to racism and the divide of color. Prescription opioid use has seemingly affected different demographics at different periods and rates, with growing racial disparities. Much evidence suggests a discrepancy in the government and public response to this drug epidemic in comparison to the criminalization of the drug epidemic of the 1980s, having to do with the race/ethnicity of a person using drugs, with communities of color facing incarceration and Whites facing recovery services. A strong theoretical tradition in medical sociology says that health outcomes are built on social factors, specifically racialized social systems that reinforce white privilege through social relations and practices. Data from the State of California (CA), over much of the period of the epidemic (2008-2018), was used to test whether this happened for opioid prescriptions and deaths in CA counties(n=58). To investigate some of the dynamics of this growing problem, I formulate and empirically test hypotheses derived from fundamental cause theory (FCT) as a contributing explanation for opioid prescription and overdose (OD) death trends in California. This theory proposes that disparities by socioeconomic status (SES) and race-ethnicity persist or are reproduced because access to treatments and interventions are unequally distributed, flowing more freely to those with greater access to flexible resources of knowledge, money, power, prestige, and beneficial social connections. Multiple regression was run to investigate the extent to which counties that were predominately populated by Whites, had greater access to opioid prescription over time. An investigation of OD death trends in CA counties over time was also investigated. Results were consistent with FCT, involving resources that determined the extent to which whites were able to avoid multiple disease outcomes involving the opioid epidemic.

This paper studies the effect of Secure Communities, an immigration enforcement program that removed a large number of non-citizens from the United States, on the living arrangements of elderly U.S.-born individuals. Using U.S. Census data and exploiting spatial and temporal variation in the implementation of the program, I estimate a difference-indifferences model with location and time-fixed effects. I find that Secure Communities increased the likelihood of coresidence among single elderly by about 3.6 percent. Furthermore , I provide suggestive evidence that the single elderly's coresidence with a person out of the labor force increased by 5.4 percent following Secure Communities. Empirical tests suggest that the increased price of household services due to the reduction of immigrants' labor supply is the key mechanism generating these effects. Taken together, these findings suggest that strict immigration enforcement policies could have a large impact on the living arrangements and labor market outcomes of U.S.-born persons.

This paper critically discusses blind spots in AI ethics. AI ethics discourses typically stick to a certain set of topics concerning principles evolving mainly around explainability, fairness, and privacy. All these principles can be framed in a way that enables their operationalization by technical means. However, this requires stripping down the multidimensionality of very complex social constructs to something that is idealized, measurable, and calculable. Consequently, rather conservative, mainstream notions of the mentioned principles are conveyed, whereas critical research, alternative perspectives, and non-ideal approaches are largely neglected. Hence, one part of the paper considers specific blind spots regarding the very topics AI ethics focusses on. The other part, then, critically discusses blind spots regarding to topics that hold significant ethical importance but are hardly or not discussed at all in AI ethics. Here, the paper focuses on negative externalities of AI systems, exemplarily discussing the casualization of clickwork, AI ethics’ strict anthropocentrism, and AI’s environmental impact. Ultimately, the paper is intended to be a critical commentary on the ongoing development of the field of AI ethics. It makes the case for a rediscovery of the strength of ethics in the AI field, namely its sensitivity to suffering and harms that are caused by and connected to AI technologies.

High-stakes, standardized testing has historically impeded education/career attainment for members of underrepresented minority groups and people needing testing accommodations. This study was to understand how high-stakes, standardized testing, particularly the NCLEX-RN, impacts diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in nursing. This study explored the history, context, perspectives surrounding standardized testing, with a focus on the NCLEX-RN. The authors consider content, form, and delivery of testing, including accommodations. They identify available data and data collection gaps relevant to DEI and the NCLEX-RN. No nursing organization published the national data necessary to evaluate/refine the NCLEX-RN from a DEI perspective. Preliminary nursing studies and data from other professions indicated disparities in testing outcomes. Nursing must determine if prospective nurses are experiencing disparities in testing outcomes. The authors highlight opportunities to advance DEI through improved data collection, reformed licensure processes, and the reframing of standardized testing as one of many tools to determine competency.

Some interventions or population attributes negate the effects of a treatment. This paper shows that incorporating these, what we call antidotal variables (AV), into a causal treatment effects analysis can with one cross-sectional regression identify the true causal effect, in addition to possible biases from selectivity and SUTVA violations. Whereas we apply the AV technique to analyze the California Paid Family Leave program, it has applications beyond this example.

Importance: The number of people living in unaffordable housing (relative to income) is projected to continue increasing as housing cost inflation outpaces incomes in the US. Although reproductive-aged women have disproportionately high housing costs, particularly around the time of childbirth, data on associations between housing costs and maternal health and the role of publicly supported affordable housing programs in mitigating those associations are lacking. Objective: To estimate associations between area-level rental housing costs and severe maternal morbidity (SMM) and assess the potential mitigating role of publicly supported affordable housing. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cross-sectional study linked New Jersey birth files from January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2018, to maternal hospital discharge records and municipal-level housing and demographic data from the state of New Jersey and the US Census Bureau. Data were analyzed from January to September 2022. The birth files contained records for all births in New Jersey, and the hospital discharge records contained information from all inpatient hospitalizations over the study period. A total of 1 004 000 birth records were matched to maternal discharge records and municipal-level data. Exposures: Municipal-level rental costs relative to income (housing cost burden), availability of publicly supported affordable housing, and housing subsidy per person with an income lower than the federal poverty level. Main Outcomes and Measures: Severe maternal morbidity was identified using diagnosis and procedure codes developed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to measure SMM. Results: Of 1 004 000 mothers (mean [SD] age at birth, 29.8 [5.9] years; 44.7% White), 20 022 (2.0%) experienced SMM. Higher municipal rental housing costs were associated with greater odds of SMM (odds ratio [OR], 1.27; 95% CI, 1.01-1.60), particularly among mothers with less than a high school education (OR, 1.81; 95% CI, 1.06-3.10), and the positive associations decreased at higher levels of affordable housing availability. Among mothers with less than a high school education, the risk of SMM was 8.0% lower (risk ratio, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.85-1.00) for each additional $1000 annual municipal-level housing subsidy per person with an income lower than poverty level after controlling for rental costs and other characteristics, which translated to a 20.7% lower educational disparity in SMM. Conclusions and Relevance: In this cross-sectional study, living in a municipality with higher rental housing costs was associated with higher odds of SMM, except when there was high availability of publicly supported affordable housing. These results suggest that greater availability of publicly supported affordable housing has the potential to mitigate the association between rental housing costs and SMM and reduce socioeconomic disparities in SMM.

Attitudes towards business vary significantly across political lines, religious denominations, and ethnic groups. We utilize this variation to construct a measure of local business attitudes and show that firms in areas with stronger probusiness attitudes are less likely to incorporate in Delaware and adopt more management-friendly provisions in their corporate bylaws. These findings are further supported by an instrumental variable estimation utilizing data on immigration at the turn of the 19th century. The overall findings indicate that firms in probusiness areas are less likely to provide unconditional protection of their managers through incorporation in Delaware. Instead, they tend to provide protection through more flexible means, such as corporate bylaws.

How does women's empowerment affect fertility and children’s education? In a dramatic revolution, U.S. states gave economic rights to married women between 1850-1920. Prior to this "women's liberation," married women were subject to the laws of coverture, which granted the husband virtually unlimited power of the purse within the household. Women’s legal identities were subsumed (or covered) by their husbands. We show that granting women economic rights led to less fertility and more education. We employ an event study using the full count U.S. census and contiguous county-border pairs in bordering states that gave rights at different times. Additionally, rights were not retroactive, implying differences between those married before/after reforms. This alternative identification strategy confirms our findings and illuminates mechanisms. Quantitatively, women's empowerment can account for 15% (20%) of the decline (increase) in fertility (education) during the U.S. demographic transition. We find that shifting bargaining power accounts for these results with the underlying spousal disagreement relating to maternal mortality risk. Wealthier families decreased their fertility by more than other families, consistent with the notion that differences in control over wealth are responsible for our results. Articles from the New York Times confirm that people were aware of the implications of the legal changes. We provide evidence to negate mechanisms besides bargaining power shifts to explain our findings. Considering that the U.S. was a developing country at the time, our findings may be relevant for policy in developing countries today, where maternal mortality is still high and women are economically disadvantaged.

We show that the deportation of criminals from the United States increased subsequent migration from Central America and Mexico. We focus on a time period in which U.S. policy led to significant increases in the deportation of criminals. Our findings are robust to tests that suggest the documented link is causal and not simply correlational. Finally, we argue that deportation policy shifts the selection of the migrant flow, which becomes skewed more heavily towards female children.

The revelation that the Trump administration separated immigrant children from their families at the U.S.–Mexico border and placed them in detention facilities sparked protests across the country in 2018. While the policy received swift backlash from the public and was widely derided as running counter to American values and the rule of law, a segment of the American public supports the policy. We argue that ethnocultural forms of nationalism—beliefs about religious, ethnic, and gendered criteria for “true Americanness”—help explain support for family separations. We test this argument using two surveys collected 2 years apart. In both data sets, we find substantial evidence that ethnocultural forms of nationalism are linked to support for family separation, while generalized nationalism is not.

How the energy system impacts the lives of Minnesota households varies significantly based on race, income, geography, housing quality, access to infrastructure, and broader historic patterns of injustice. Energy burden, the percentage of household income spent on non-transportation energy use, is one indicator of how the energy system impacts lives. In Minnesota, the average household energy burden is 2 percent, which is below the national average. Yet Minnesotans living below the Federal Poverty Level carry an average energy burden of 16 percent – an eightfold increase. The effect of a high energy burden on one’s wellbeing is multifold: Households with higher energy burdens are more likely to face disconnections from electric and gas services, as well as face tradeoffs between being able to afford energy and being able to afford other basic necessities, such as food, medicine, or transportation. Numerous federal, state, and local policies and programs aim to address the persistent disparities caused by the energy system by expanding opportunities through the energy system. These efforts target household energy insecurity, unequal access to energy efficiency and clean energy, and the diversity of the workforce in the energy sector, among other issues. In the coming decade, the energy system is likely to undergo a radical transformation from fossil fuel to clean energy technologies in response to climate change. That makes now a critical time to ask: How can we, starting in our own communities, leverage the opportunity created by this transition to effectively recognize and respond to energy injustices? Failing to recognize current injustices in the energy system risks building an energy future that replicates or exacerbates injustice.

Foster care in childhood predicts lower education levels and employment rates in adulthood relative to non-foster care children, including higher rates of incarceration, and adverse mental and physical health outcomes. These differences persist even after controlling for racial, economic, and neighborhood effects. Given these disparities and that 4-6 percent of the United States population experiences foster care at some point in childhood, there is a clear need to identify policies and programs that are effective in improving outcomes for individuals during and after foster care. This paper surveys the existing research and policy landscape to highlight what approaches are being taken and what is currently known about effective services for children and youth in foster care. We identify high priority foster care research questions and offer suggestions for how to best pursue these questions. The majority of published research papers related to foster care programs or best practices lack the requisite design or minimum sample size to identify causal impact.

Minority-owned banks have a mission to promote economic wellbeing in their communities. They benefit from soft-information-based lending, which yields an advantage in serving community needs through times of financial and economic crises. To test these propositions, we analyze individual banks in their local market context from 2006-2020. Results suggest minority-owned banks improve economic resilience in their communities during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the COVID-19 Crisis through increased small business and household lending, but fewer benefits are found during other phases of the business cycle. Our results are robust and stand up to treatments of identification concerns, including propensity score matching (PSM) and instrumental variables (IV). Our results imply if all US banks behaved in a manner consistent with minority-owned banks through the GFC, at least 1.9 million more minority jobs would have been maintained and at least $50 billion more in credit would have been available to small businesses on an annual basis. These findings are consistent with predictions of the economic resilience literature, but not those of the finance-growth nexus research.

Urban populations demonstrate some of the world's most prominent health disparities and are key targets for health disparities research. The majority of the world’s population lives in cities and urban development is expanding in all regions of the world. The creation of solutions to improve health and address health disparities in these complex, concentrated, and diverse urban environments is essential. It is well known that health disparities exist on both an individual and community level. People living in the same zip code can have a difference in life expectancy of more than 20 years due to factors such as economic stability, education preparation, employability, race and health care insurance access. Poor health outcomes for urban underserved patients related to these health disparities are well documented. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and other organizations have spent billions of dollars supporting clinical practicum internships and incentivized employment opportunities across all health specialties with the hope of luring new providers into underserved areas to help improve poor health outcomes. While trainingships and employment opportunities provide clinical exposure to urban populations, these initiatives have not translated to a better understanding or improved health outcomes for the urban patient population. All healthcare specialties offer foundational graduate level courses that expose students to the concept of health disparities. Unfortunately, there exist fundamental gaps in comprehension and application of practical knowledge when preparing the student to actively engage urban patients. It is imperative that we train students to take a holistic approach to patient care, acknowledging that the patient is more than just their physical or mental illness. Urban providers need to recognize how social determinants of health, policy, perceptions, disparities, and lack of resources impact health outcomes of underserved populations. In acknowledging the lived experience of urban patients and how disparities impact their daily lives, we can begin to build more effective patient-provider relationships. This textbook aids in providing a platform for readers to have open discourse about urban health, healthcare disparities and interprofessional collaboration to achieve better patient outcomes. The main goals of this textbook are: • to explore how an individual’s experiences, implicit biases, interpersonal skills and urban expectations impact healthcare delivery and patient engagement • to develop a flipped consciousness that will engage and create awareness of the lived experience of urban patients and urban healthcare providers • to explore how disparities impact personal health choices and health outcomes • to explore available resources in the urban community and engage interprofessional collaborative practice to improve patient care • to provide an educational tool that will be utilized by and adapted to all healthcare disciplines to provide a consistent approach to understanding urban health disparities in the United States

Older workers were mostly in a disadvantageous position in the job market during the COVID-19 recession due to their high risk of infection and the likelihood of age discrimination. Despite a growing literature on the labor impacts of the COVID-19 recession on older workers, only a few papers highlight the disproportionate impacts of the current recession on older workers and discuss whether this recession hit older workers differently from other recessions. I use monthly Current Population Survey data to analyze the impacts of COVID-19 on multiple labor outcomes of older workers, such as labor force participation rates, unemployment rates, and unemployment duration. I found that COVID-19 hit the employment of 65+ workers harder than younger workers; however, they recovered faster in December 2021. In contrast, although older workers were more likely to leave the labor force, they were less likely to rejoin than younger workers. Furthermore, older workers took longer to find jobs in the post-COVID period, suggesting evidence of age discrimination. Among 55+ workers, women suffered more substantial impacts but improved better than men. 55+ Asians, both men and women, experienced the most significant effects on labor force participation and unemployment rates; however, their recovery was slower than others. Among five recent recessions, the COVID-19 recession hit older workers, particularly women, the most significantly. Older workers recovered their employment quickly, within 22 months, while it took much longer to bounce back in the other recessions. However, there was no significant improvement in their labor force participation in the current recession, which is inconsistent with the patterns in most of the previous recessions.

Black families moved into Westside San Bernardino in small numbers in 1910s and 20s, settling near the Santa Fe Railyard between 6th and 9th east of Mount Vernon. They built churches, businesses and masonic orders and the NAACP that became the foundation of early civil rights movement from the 1920s through the 1940s. This StoryMap traces the long the civil rights movement in San Bernardino, highlighting the roots of the movement in the 40s, the challenges to housing segregation in the 50s, and the activism for equal education in the 1960s and 70s. Drawing on oral histories and photos from the Bridges That Carried Us Over Project, this StoryMap brings to life the rich history of activism on San Bernardino's Westside including the stories of W.S. Johnson who was president of the NAACP founded in 1919, Art Townsend who started the Precinct Reporter and mentored a generation of activists, and Frances Grice who worked alongside Bonnie Johnson and Valerie Pope to launch the Community League of Mothers to fight for school desegregation and equal schools.

This study explores the impact of work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on the labor supply of able-bodied adults without dependents, exploiting unique features of SNAP work requirements. First, states can exempt individuals living in certain areas from work requirements. Second, the work requirements apply only to adults aged below 50. Using a triple difference model that compares the time-series changes in labor supply for age groups on either side of the age threshold in areas before and after the exemption, I find that suspending work requirements does not discourage employment; a decrease in employment of more than 1.4 percentage points among people who are potentially affected by the exemption can be ruled out with a 95% confidence interval. I also find evidence of a reduction in hours of work among older prime-age workers due to the work exemption. Further analysis uncovers two reasons why the work exemption has little effect on employment. First, many new SNAP participants who enrolled due to the exemption are the long-term non-employed who have no labor supply to reduce. Second, the generous income deductions in benefit calculation act as work incentives by significantly lowering the effective benefit reduction rate at very low income ($0-600). These findings indicate that the SNAP work requirement is unlikely to achieve the intended goal of promoting employment; instead it may increase the risk of disadvantaged individuals failing to receive the assistance they need.

Affordable housing has declined in recent decades, yet limited research has examined the demographic and economic changes influencing place-level affordability-especially outside of large metros. In this study I examine the effects of county-level population growth and decline, population aging, and natural amenity development on rates of affordable housing, income, and housing costs across four types of counties. While declines in affordability from 1990-2016 were universal between rural and urban counties, population growth is associated with decreases in affordability in rural counties but increased affordability in large metros counties due to estimated decreases in housing costs. Population aging is estimated to improve affordability in large and small metro counties, despite the associated decrease in income and housing costs across all county types. The effects of aging vary greatly between owners and renters. Natural amenity development, despite its theoretical importance, is not associated with changes in affordability for rural counties.

Comprised of three essays, my dissertation is linked by a common focus: the relationship between state or local governance arrangements and inequality or facets of social equity. I draw upon a range of literatures to motivate my research questions and inform my methodologies—welfare and social policy, public economics, intergovernmental relations, public finance and management. In the first essay, I ask: does localizing welfare governance impact geospatial access to the social safety net? This is an important question because proximity is highly salient to program utilization. I geocode the location of human services nonprofits from tax filings in eight states using ArcGIS and create measures of access for low-income neighborhoods over 17 years. I leverage the 1996 welfare reform, which enabled states to devolve more policymaking discretion to local governments, to examine the responsiveness of nonprofits to changes in welfare governance with respect to geospatial accessibility. One of my main findings is that low-income neighborhoods in states that chose to localize welfare had less access post-reform to program revenues, a proxy for government contracts and services. In the second essay, I study the relationship between state government wages and privatization. Governments have used public sector employment to support a variety of goals, including social equity and economic development, but privatization, as an NPM reform, may shift that focus. My empirical analysis shows that state privatization of service delivery is associated with decreases in the public sector wage premium, but that these effects are not driven by gender, race, or low levels of educational attainment. The quality of implementation conditions these effects. I also find that privatization is associated with a lower public sector wage premium for middle-class workers. In the third essay, I and a co-author leverage a 2003 Arkansas state law requiring school district reorganization via an enrollment cutoff to evaluate the effects of consolidations on rural communities’ population, number of schools, and property values using a propensity score matched difference-in-differences design. We estimate that the reform led to reductions in population, community schools, and property value assessments. We also find that communities with greater shares of racial minorities may have been disproportionately affected with respect to population loss.