As the COVID-19 pandemic took deeper hold in the United States in March 2020, fears of exposure to the novel coronavirus caused many people to restrict activities outside their homes. To reduce the spread of the coronavirus and maintain sufficient hospital capacity to meet the potential need, governors and local officials instituted states of emergency. These declarations required that people remain at home, only going out for groceries and prescriptions, doctor’s appointments, exercise, and other essential activities; defined the essential businesses that could remain open; and ordered nonessential businesses to shut down most operations that could not be done remotely or through telework.

In early 2020, the novel coronavirus began spreading throughout the United States, causing the worst health crisis in over a century. Willful social distancing and government-mandated restrictions heavily constrained consumer spending, leading to a sharp decline in economic activity. The U.S. economy began an unprecedented contraction, and the unemployment rate surged. Between late February and late March, each of the three major stock indexes lost roughly one-third of their respective values.

Social media permeates many aspects of our lives, including how we connect with others, where we get our news and how we spend our time. Yet, we know little about the economic effects for users. In 2017, we ran a large field experiment with over 1765 individuals to document the value of Facebook to users and its causal effect on news, well-being and daily activities. Participants reveal how much they value one week of Facebook usage and are then randomly assigned to a validated Facebook restriction or normal use. One week of Facebook is worth $67. Those who are off Facebook for one week reduce news consumption, are less likely to recognize politically-skewed news stories, report being less depressed and engage in healthier activities. These results are strongest for men. Our results further suggest that, after the restriction, Facebook’s value increases, consistent with information loss or that using Facebook may be addictive.

This paper shows that own-to-rent housing stock transitions provide a long run source of affordable housing while slowing recovery following a shock. Based on multiple linked surveys for the United States, there is a 2 percent net shift of existing SFD housing into rental status with each passing decade. Short term transitions can be larger and exceed 10 percent for recently built homes following the 2007 crash. Short run effects also partly reverse as markets rebound, depressing new construction. At the MSA level, roughly 25 fewer single family permits are filed for every 100 own-to-rent transitions of recently built homes.

The coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19) pandemic has created both a public health crisis and an economic crisis in the United States. The pandemic has disrupted lives, pushed the hospital system to its capacity, and created a global economic slowdown. As of September 15, 2020 there have been more than 6.5 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 195,000 deaths in the United States (Johns Hopkins University n.d.). To put these numbers into context, the pandemic has now claimed more than three times the American lives that were lost in the Vietnam War (Ducharme 2020; authors’ calculations). The economic crisis is unprecedented in its scale: the pandemic has created a demand shock, a supply shock, and a financial shock all at once (Triggs and Kharas 2020).

How do right to work laws affect the distribution of economic resources? While sociological theories would predict inequality to increase following their passage, previous research finds these laws to be largely inconsequential. The author compiles a unique data set of 77 years of income and wage inequality data from the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. census, the U.S. Union Sourcebook, and the National Labor Relations Board. After replicating inconsistent results from previous studies, the author shows that they mask substantial and robust heterogeneity across local areas. Right to work laws are consequential when passed in times and places where labor has something to lose. They remove the negative association between labor union membership and inequality, with the greatest consequences of right to work passage in highly unionized areas. In total, results suggest that right to work laws work as intended, increasing economic inequality indirectly by lowering labor power resources. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.

The study applies a Random Utility model in examining household welfare from participating in Medicaid −a vital resource in millions of lower income working-age households across the US. Binary logits are estimated using pooled data (2013–2018) from the Current Population Survey’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) covering expansion and non-expansion state populations. The gains in Consumer’s surplus are highest for study units reporting ‘deep poverty,’ poor health status and being outside the labor force.

This paper uses the Current Population Survey to examine the differential experiences of demographic groups following the Great Recession. Geographic variation in recession severity is used to asses the effect of recession severity on long term employment outcomes. I use three empirical strategies to find that the effect of recession severity on employment is more severe for men in the short run, but quickly evens before affecting women more deeply. Seven years after the lowest point of employment, women are 100% more affected by local recession severity than men. For a 10% decrease in employment during the recession, this paper finds that women's employment after seven years is 4% lower than if there was no drop in employment during the recession while men's is 2% lower. These findings suggest that women suffer the long term effects of recessions significantly more than men.

Discussions and investigations of gender differences in earnings and human capital have seen a resurgence recently, specifically as they relate to women in Science, Technology, Math, and Engineering (STEM). Previous research, including my own, has uncovered inequality in earnings. Here, using data from the U.S. Current Population Survey, I examine the relationship between gender and (i) earning a professional certification; and (ii) pursuing graduate education: both means of career advancement and economic mobility. Simple ordinary least squares indicates women are less likely than men to obtain a professional certification, though this effect disappears in the presence of controls, including whether one works in a STEM occupation. Further analysis examines the probability of obtaining post-graduate education, as well as selection into a STEM occupation. The results can inform policies aiming to close gender gaps in higher education outcomes.

Power and dependence in economic exchange shape industry structure. When a focal industry faces powerful suppliers or buyers, this can reduce industry rents. The authors argue that these dynamics also affect job quality by reducing the economic surplus available to be shared with workers. Drawing on ideas from power-dependency theory, this article explains industry earnings and job quality differences by examining inter-industry exchange patterns. The authors build on Ronald Burt’s seminal analysis of structural constraint in economic exchange using industry input-output tables. They calculate market constraint measures for recent years in the United States and link these with CPS data on wages and benefits. Analyses reveal that workers in more buyer-constrained industries (dependence on powerful buyers) experience lower wages and benefits. Findings also show that market constraint reduces the economic surplus available for union bargaining. Theory and results suggest that market concentration reduces suppliers’ economic rents, harming job quality.

Technical change that improves economies of scale can generate fast income growth among top earners at the expense of everyone else. I test this classic "superstar model" in the labor market for entertainers where the historic roll-out of television led to a natural experiment in scale-related technological change. The launch of a local TV station multiplied audiences of top entertainers nearly fourfold and resulted in a 50% increase of the top percentile's income share, a more right-skewed income distribution, and significant income losses for lowerranked entertainers. The results confirm the predictions of the "superstar model" and are at odds with canonical models of skill-biased technological change.

Employment rates in the United States fell dramatically between February 2020 and April 2020 as the initial repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic reverberated through the labor market. This paper uses data from the CPS Basic Monthly Files to document that the employment decline was particularly severe for immigrants. Historically, immigrant men were more likely to be employed than native men. The COVID-related labor market disruptions eliminated the immigrant employment advantage. By April 2020, immigrant men had lower employment rates than native men. The reversal occurred both because the rate of job loss for at-work immigrant men rose relative to that of natives, and because the rate at which out-of-work immigrants could find jobs fell relative to the native jobfinding rate. A small part of the relative increase in the immigrant rate of job loss arises because immigrants were less likely to work in jobs that could be performed remotely and suffered disparate employment consequences as the lockdown permitted workers with more “remotable” skills to continue their work from home.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that entrepreneurs report fewer hours of sleep. However, in samples of 12,086 individuals in the 2012 and 2014 cross-sections of The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), and 47,851 individuals in the 2013–2016 National Health Interview Sample cross-sections, our results indicate that self-employed individuals report more sleep. The results in these two samples further show that psychological distress mediates the relationship between self-employment and lower self-reported sleep time and poorer sleep quality. In the third sample of 7714 individuals in waves 1 and 4 of the UK Household Longitudinal Survey, self-employed individuals reporting increase in sleep from wave 1 to wave 4 also reported a very small increase in monthly gross income, indicating limited, if any, gains to income from increasing sleep hours.

When social scientists examine relationships between income and voting decisions, their measures implicitly compare people to others in the national economic distribution. Yet an absolute income level (e.g., $57,617 per year, the 2016 national median) does not have the same meaning in Clay County, Georgia, where the 2016 median income was $22,100, as it does in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, where the median income was $224,000. We address this limitation by incorporating a measure of one's place in her ZIP code's income distribution. We apply this approach to the question of the relationship between income and whites' voting decisions in the 2016 presidential election, and test for generalizability in elections since 2000. The results show that Trump's support was concentrated among nationally poor whites but also among locally affluent whites, complicating claims about the role of income in that election. This pattern suggests that social scientists would do well to conceive of income in relative terms: relative to one's neighbors...In the following section, we present our approach, which incorporates information about an individual's place in a local stratification order based on their ZIP code, by illustrating how income distributions and costs of living vary across geographical locations and by explaining why that may matter for vote choice. We then apply this approach to the behavior of white voters in elections since 2000 using data from the waves of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (Ansolabehere and Schaffner, 2008–2010) and National Annenberg Election Survey (Annenberg Center for Public Policy, 2000–2004), with a focus on the 2016 presidential election. We find that relationships between income and vote choice differ if income is considered relative to a local distribution or relative to a national distribution. The results contribute to ongoing debates about the role of income in whites' support for Donald Trump, and also the role of income in whites' voting decisions more generally. As discussed in the concluding section, the findings also have implications for research on the relationship between income and a wide range of variables of interest to scholars of public opinion and political behavior.

This paper examines the effects of population growth and decline on county-level income inequality in the United States from 1980 to 2016. Findings from previous research have shown that income inequality is positively associated with population change, but these studies have not explicitly tested for differences between the impacts of population growth and decline. Understanding the implications of population dynamics is particularly important given that many rural areas are characterized by population decline. We analyze county-level data (n=15,375 county-decades) from the Decennial Census and American Community Survey (ACS), applying fixed effects models to estimate the respective effects of population growth and decline on income inequality, to identify the processes that mediate the links between population change and inequality, and to assess whether these effects are moderated by county-level economic and demographic characteristics. We find evidence that population decline is associated with increased levels of income inequality relative to counties experiencing stable and high rates of population growth. This relationship remains robust across a variety of model specifications, including models that account for changes in counties’ employment, sociodemographic, and ethnoracial composition. We also find that the relationship between income inequality and population change varies by metropolitan status, baseline level of inequality, and region.

Portland has faced a mass displacement of Black households from the historically segregated area of Albina through various phases of urban renewal, urban deterioration, and gentrification. A substantial number of them have moved to East Portland, a suburban segment of the City of Portland that was unincorporated county land prior to the 1990’s. As Black people have left Albina, the roots of Blackness there have eroded from the area as businesses and churches catering to them have also closed as a result of lost patrons. In this study I interviewed 27 low-income working-age Black people with children with the sample divided between Albina and East Portland. I talked to them about how they got around, the places they were going, the people in their lives that help them get by, and how it has all been affected by gentrification. I evaluated their interviews through the theories of social reproduction and social exclusion with an emphasis on geographic differences in lived experiences between Albina and East Portland. I found that people in Albina were better resourced, on average, to accomplish their daily life maintenance. Through easier transportation (including a higher rate of car ownership), better and stronger social support networks, and a higher density of nearby destinations, Albina residents could get around faster, easier, and accomplish more in a day. East Portlanders struggled far more. Clustering of destinations around the western edge of East Portland put those destinations out of reach for most of them. Support networks for people in East Portland featured a lot of friends and family that had also been displaced, but their ii networks there were under-resourced. They often had to turn to their network living in Albina for their more critical needs like childcare, but it took a lot more effort to utilize. Overall, the cultural rootedness of Albina appeared to be eroding as more and more Black people left and were being replaced by high-end shops, restaurants, and White people. Safety concerns on transit was leading to huge declines in willingness to use transit. This was spurred in part by the racially-motivated murders on MAX, but mostly because of their encounters with homeless people and people with untreated mental illnesses which also spilled over into overt racist acts against them or their children. And while East Portland has had a lot of investments in road safety, it is the distance between destinations that has really hurt their ability to survive. As East Portland continues to grow with more lowincome people of color, more attention needs to go to the urban development of the area to make life a little easier for them.

It’s almost universally accepted that America must prioritize getting schools open for in-person learning as soon as it is safely possible. But, whether or not in-person schools open soon, we must increase online education’s capability. Even though the issue is becoming increasingly polarized with the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Joe Biden staking out strong positions on one side or the other, it is no longer a choice between in-person and online. Both are needed. Education is not only necessary for an adequately prepared workforce; it is a national security and economic imperative.

This paper estimates the impact of service-for-citizenship incentives on the Army-enlistment propensities of non-US citizens from 1994 to 2007. I use Army administrative and Cur- rent Population Survey (CPS) data to estimate the effects of federal-immigration policy on noncitizen-enlistment rates using a generalized difference-in-differences model, exploiting variation in unanticipated immigration-policy changes. I find that peacetime enlistment for 17 to 26-year-old high-school equivalents increased by 133% after an asylum-to-green-card policy. I find that wartime enlistment for 17 to 26-year-old more-educated noncitizens 1) increased by 243% just after 9/11; 2) decreased by 367% after the Patriot Act; and 3) increased by 500% after the enactment of a wartime service-for-expedited-citizenship policy. On average, noncitizen enlistment increased by 0.44% relative to US citizens from 1994 to August 2001, significant at the 0.10 level.

For decades, the American construction industry has represented a viable pathway for non-college educated workers to develop employable skills and secure the types of blue-collar, middle-class jobs that have been the backbone of families and communities around the country. Many corners of the construction industry feature some of the best labor practices in the American economy, including family-supporting wages and benefits, fully funded worker education and training programs, and joint labor-management cooperation. But these progressive workplace practices are hardly uniform. In stark contrast, other corners of the construction sector feature some of the worst labor practices in the United States: meager wages, no benefits, unsafe working conditions, wage theft, and payroll fraud. These unethical and illegal labor practices are largely the result of construction employers’ single-minded pursuit of reducing labor costs. This has a cascade of effects. Most directly, these actions degrade the standard of living for workers in those jobs. But they also make it difficult, if not impossible, for honest and law-abiding contractors to remain in operation in a market where they must compete against firms with significantly lower costs. The exit of honest employers further degrades industry working conditions, leading to a “race to the bottom” that represents an existential threat to fair-minded employers and workers whose best practices have helped build the American economy and its blue-collar middle class

This study inquires whether a new structurally dispossessed class is developing in the United States. The new class proposition is derived from social theory and operationalized by two empirical characteristics: not in the labor force (NILF) and family income below poverty. The primary data source is the Current Population Survey over the years from 1968 to 2018, and threshold demographic criteria for class development is specified as increasing size and diversity. Because evidence is found to support the latter criterion but not the former, the proposition that a new class is developing is partially rejected. The analysis finds that new social components are joining the NILF/impoverished including men, Hispanics, college graduates, and young adults. Second, that the NILF/impoverished are politically active in terms of electoral participation, and no more likely than the total electorate to have voted for a populist Presidential candidate in 2016. NILF/impoverished recipiency of state transfers varies over time, increasing through the Great Recession, then receding. The implications of the investigation are discussed in terms of the likelihood that the NILF/impoverished will generate new forms of political opposition to the rule of capital.