The recent report of 2 critically ill emergency physicians infected by the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a sobering reminder of the vulnerability of the nation’s health care workforce.1 While all members of the health care workforce are vital as the health care system faces perhaps its greatest challenge in memory, physicians and nurses are the caregivers who typically have the most direct contact with patients, whether through advising, triaging, or treating those who require hospitalization. Across the nation, people, and particularly those older than 60 years, are being asked to stay at home and practice social distancing to slow the spread of infection and help avoid overwhelming hospitals that are expected to encounter shortages of needed equipment and personnel. Recent estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that the rates of hospitalizations, intensive care unit admissions, and mortality among reported COVID-19 cases in the United States are substantially higher among patients older than 45 years compared with younger patients, with case-fatality rates exceeding 1.4% among patients aged 55 to 64 years and exceeding 2.7% among those aged 65 to 74 years.

Alternative data is increasingly adapted to predict human and economic behaviour. This paper introduces a new type of alternative data by re-conceptualising the internet as a data-driven insights platform at global scale. Using data from a unique internet activity and location dataset drawn from over 1.5 trillion observations of end-user internet connections, we construct a functional dataset covering over 1,600 cities during a 7 year period with temporal resolution of just 15min. To predict accurate temporal patterns of sleep and work activity from this data-set, we develop a new technique, Segmented Functional Classification Analysis (SFCA), and compare its performance to a wide array of linear, functional, and classification methods. To confirm the wider applicability of SFCA, in a second application we predict sleep and work activity using SFCA from US city-wide electricity demand functional data. Across both problems, SFCA is shown to out-perform current methods.

Though many methods from ecology translate well to agroecosystems and still further, urban agroecosystems, systems of food production in areas of dense human occupation often necessitate a different approach to ecological research. This chapter provides a primer on natural science research methods for new researchers in UA. The chapter overviews recent ecological research in or relevant to urban agriculture, paying particular attention to methodological advancements made from a natural science perspective. Specifically, this chapter outlines 1) the application of classic ecological theory to urban agriculture's unique ecological conditions; 2) open questions in the ecology of UA, and broader questions in ecology that can be addressed in UA systems; 3) what methods from ecology and agroecology translate well and what must be newly adapted; and 4) the most pressing methodological issues for future urban agroecologial research to address.

Social science literature suggests marriage is an important and necessary pathway in determining the economic context for and predictor of women’s class status. This chapter raises important questions about the presumption of marriage as a route to the middle class for women of color. Using 1980, 1990, 2000 IPUMS and ACS data for 2010 and 2014, we derive a middle-class index (MCi) based on education, homeownership, per person income, and occupational prestige. By 2014, for Asian women and Latinas their share of single and living alone (SALA) household slightly increased. Black female SALA middle-class households still comprise the highest percentage of their middle-class than other racial/ethnic groups. Foreign-born women comprise a smaller share of SALA households relative to native born.

This paper uses a panel of SSA earnings linked to the CPS to estimate the impact of increasing post-childbirth work incentives on mothers' long-run career trajectories. We implement a novel research design that exploits variation in the timing of the 1993 reform of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) around a woman's first birth and in eligibility for the credit. We find that single mothers exposed to the expansion immediately after a first birth ("early-exposed") have 3 to 4 p.p. higher employment in the 5 years after a first birth than single mothers exposed 3 to 6 years after a first birth ("late-exposed"). Ten to nineteen years after a first birth, early-exposed mothers have the same employment and hours as late-exposed mothers, but have accrued 0.5 to 0.6 more years of work experience and have 6 percent higher earnings. Incorporating long-run effects on EITC benefits and earnings increases the implied marginal value of public funds (MVPF) of the expansion. Our results suggest that there are steep returns to work incentives at childbirth that accumulate over the life-cycle.

In this paper, I use geospatial data on payday lending storefronts to assess a landmark federal policy initiative: the 2007 Military Lending Act (MLA), which created a federal interest rate cap on consumer loans to military members. I ask whether the implementation of the MLA resulted in a reduction in the number of payday storefronts within military communities, leveraging state-level variation in payday lending laws in Colorado, Washington, and Oregon. The analysis shows that the MLA alone had virtually no impact on reducing payday loan exposure in military communities. In contrast, state-wide restrictions capping interest rates for all consumers was effective in reducing payday lender presence in all communities across the state, including military areas. These findings suggest that MLA as implemented was a misaligned policy solution and that universal social reforms may be most effective in reducing exposure to subprime financial services. I conclude with a discussion of a public alternative to payday lending – postal banking – and how this option could be enhanced to ensure military access to low-cost financial services.

Recent events have brought racial inequities to the forefront of many conversations. At the Center for Household Financial Stability, we have documented underlying racial economic disparities that may be contributing to heightened tensions. As the dialogue continues, you may be wondering about the magnitude of economic racial gaps in your state. In comparing state-level racial socioeconomic well-being trends—focusing on median household income, poverty status and health insurance—to national benchmarks, three key findings emerged: Median Black/white income gaps vary considerably, but in all states white median household income is greater than Black median household income. Racial poverty gaps and poverty rates fluctuated widely (e.g., Puerto Rico had a Black-white gap of 6 percentage points but high poverty, while Maryland had a gap of 7 percentage points but fairly low poverty). Across states, racial health insurance gaps were comparatively smaller; yet, Black people had lower health insurance rates than whites in all states.

One theorized explanation for the disparity in divorce rates between low- and higher-income couples is a difference in the amount of time couples spend together. Time is an important component of relationship maintenance but increasing demands outside of the home are decreasing the amount of shared time between spouses (Nomaguchi, Milkie, Beard, & Thompson, 2019). Low-income couples may experience the greatest time deficits as they face a greater number of stressors that take up time, diminishing the quantity of time they have available. They may also need to use the time they do have available to deal with stressors rather than engaging in more enjoyable leisure-like activities, diminishing the quality of time they share. Using a sample of N = 26,557 respondents from the American Time Use Survey, the current study examined whether household income was associated with how much time married couples spend together, and how happy and how stressed respondents reported feeling while spending time with their spouse. Results indicated that low-income couples spent more time together overall, and more time together in leisure activities, and reported greater levels of happiness and stress during shared time compared to higher earning couples. Although these findings provide evidence that low-income couples do not lack shared time together, spending time at home with one’s spouse may not be beneficial if that time is characterized by high levels of stress, suggesting that quality of time may be more important in understanding the disparity in divorce rates between low- and higher-income couples.

Alarming increases in US maternal mortality have generated national attention, a search for policy solutions to promote maternal health, and an increased recognition of how important the postpartum period is for mothers' and infants' health and well-being. Without access to consistent, comprehensive health insurance coverage, many new mothers can face extreme challenges obtaining the care they need to support their and their infants' health. This analysis uses 2015-18 data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) to document access and affordability challenges facing uninsured new mothers and 2015-17 data from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment and Monitoring System (PRAMS), a state-specific surveillance system of pregnancies resulting in a live birth, to describe the health status of women who lost Medicaid coverage following their pregnancies. Together, our analysis provides new evidence on the access and affordability barriers that could be reduced and the health problems that could be treated if these uninsured new mothers were to gain coverage through a postpartum Medicaid extension or broader Medicaid expansion. Key Findings  Approximately 11.5 percent of new mothers nationwide were uninsured from 2015 to 2018; just over half of those uninsured new mothers were Hispanic, and close to two-thirds lived in the South.  About 1 in 5 uninsured new moms reported at least one unmet need for medical care because of cost in the past year, and over half were very worried about paying their medical bills.  Roughly half of all uninsured new mothers reported that losing Medicaid or other coverage after pregnancy was the reason they were uninsured, suggesting that they would likely benefit from an extension of postpartum Medicaid coverage.  Almost one-third of women who lost Medicaid coverage and became uninsured in the postpartum period were obese before their pregnancy, and 18 percent reported either gestational diabetes or pregnancy-related hypertension, all conditions that require ongoing monitoring and care after giving birth.  About one-third of new moms who lost Medicaid were recovering from a cesarean section, and just over one-quarter reported being depressed sometimes, often, or always in the months after giving birth. Altogether, our findings indicate that many uninsured new mothers report trouble affording care and have both physical and mental health needs that would benefit from the more consistent access to coverage and care that expanding Medicaid would provide. These findings are particularly relevant given the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic crisis, which will put even more women at risk of uninsurance and in need of affordable coverage options before, during, and after pregnancy.

Poor families have more children and transfer less resources to them. This suggests that family decisions about fertility and transfers dampen intergenerational mobility. To evaluate the quantitative importance of this mechanism, we extend the standard heterogeneous-agent life cycle model with earnings risk and credit constraints to allow for endogenous fertility, family transfers, and education. The model, estimated to the US in the 2000s, implies that a counterfactual flat income-fertility profile would—through the equalization of initial conditions—increase intergenerational mobility by 6%. The impact of a counterfactual constant transfer per child is twice as large.

This article provides detailed estimates of foreign-born (immigrant) workers in the United States who are employed in “essential critical infrastructure” sectors, as defined by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (DHS 2020). Building on earlier work by the Center for Migration Studies (CMS), the article offers exhaustive estimates on essential workers on a national level, by state, for large metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), and for smaller communities that heavily rely on immigrant labor. It also reports on these workers by job sector; immigration status; eligibility for tax rebates under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act); and other characteristics. It finds that: Sixty-nine percent of all immigrants in the US labor force and 74 percent of undocumented workers are essential workers, compared to 65 percent of the native-born labor force. Seventy percent of refugees and 78 percent of Black refugees are essential workers. In all but eight US states, the foreign-born share of the essential workforce equals or exceeds that of all foreign-born workers, indicating that immigrant essential workers are disproportionately represented in the labor force. The percentage of undocumented essential workers exceeds that of native-born essential workers by nine percentage points in the 15 states with the largest labor force. In the ten largest MSAs, the percentages of undocumented and naturalized essential workers exceed the percentage of native-born essential workers by 12 and 6 percent, respectively. A total of 6.2 million essential workers are not eligible for relief payments under the CARES Act, as well as large numbers of their 3.8 million US citizen children (younger than age 17), including 1.2 million US citizen children living in households below the poverty level. The foreign-born comprise 33 percent of health care workers in New York State, 32 percent in California, 31 percent in New Jersey, 28 percent in Florida, 25 percent in Nevada and Maryland, 24 percent in Hawaii, 23 percent in Massachusetts, and 19 percent in Texas.

This brief compares changes in health coverage between 2017 and 2018 as measured by the American Community Survey (ACS), the Current Population Survey (CPS), and the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Estimates of health insurance coverage vary across surveys because of differences in question design, question order, sampling strategy, and sample size. Additionally, surveys request information about health insurance coverage questions from different time frames, such as coverage at the time of the survey or over the past calendar year. Prior research found increasing uninsurance as measured by the ACS between 2016 and 2017, despite economic improvements. Our analysis of the 2018 ACS found insurance coverage continued declining between 2017 and 2018, though at a slower rate than reported by the U.S. Census Bureau using the CPS. These declines in coverage occurred despite economic improvements such as increasing household incomes, increasing employment, and falling poverty, which we would expect to increase coverage rates. However, health insurance gains from these economic improvements may have been offset to some degree by losses of Medicaid coverage due to increasing incomes and changes in health insurance marketplace policies that may have limited enrollment. Between 2017 and 2018, funding for federal marketplace navigators and outreach programs fell. In addition, the Trump Administration ceased making cost-sharing reduction payments to marketplace insurers in 2018 while the law continued to require those insurers to offer reduced cost-sharing to low-income enrollees, substantially increasing premiums for enrollees ineligible for incomebased subsides. Finally, in 2018, the marketplace open enrollment window lasted only six weeks, from November 1 to mid-December, compared to a three-month open enrollment window in prior years. In addition, an aggressive, albeit ultimately unsuccessful, legislative effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) led to considerable confusion among consumers that may have reduced 2018 enrollment. This brief explores how coverage changes between 2017 and 2018 compare among the ACS, CPS, and NHIS. Comparing across multiple surveys allows for triangulation of the likely “true” change in uninsurance, Medicaid, and private nongroup coverage between 2017 and 2018.

Shutting down the workplace is an effective means of reducing contagion, but can incur large economic losses. We construct an exposure index, which measures infection risks across occupations, and a work-from-home index, which gauges the ease with which a job can be performed remotely across both industries and occupations. Because the two indices are negatively correlated but distinct, the economic costs of containing a pandemic can be minimized by only sending home those jobs that are highly exposed but easy to perform from home. Compared to a lockdown of all non-essential jobs, the optimal policy attains the same reduction in aggregate exposure (32 percent) with one-third fewer workers sent home (24 vs. 36 percent) and with only half the loss in aggregate wages (15 vs. 30 percent). A move from the lockdown to the optimal policy reduces the exposure of low-wage workers the most and the wage loss of the high-wage workers the most, although everyone's wage losses become smaller. A constrained optimal policy under which health workers cannot be sent home still achieves the same exposure reduction with a one-third smaller loss in aggregate wages (19 vs. 30 percent).

The United States often views itself as a nation of immigrants. This may in part be why since the early 20th century the country has seldom adopted major changes in its immigration policy. Until 1986, only the 1924 National Origins Quota Act, its dismantlement in the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act, and the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, also known as the Hart-Celler Act, involved far-reaching reforms. Another large shift occurred with the passage of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) and its derivative sequel, the 1990 Immigration Act. No major immigration legislation has yet won congressional approval in the 21st century. IRCA emerged from and followed in considerable measure the recommendations of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy (1979–1981). That body sought to reconcile two competing political constituencies, one favoring the restriction of immigration, or at least unauthorized immigration, and the other an expansion of family-based and work-related migration. The IRCA legislation contained something for each side: the passage of employer sanctions, or serious penalties on employers for hiring unauthorized workers, for the restriction side; and the provision of a legalization program, which outlined a pathway for certain unauthorized entrants to obtain green cards and eventually citizenship, for the reform side. The complete legislative package also included other provisions: including criteria allowing the admission of agricultural workers, a measure providing financial assistance to states for the costs they would incur from migrants legalizing, a requirement that states develop ways to verify that migrants were eligible for welfare benefits, and a provision providing substantial boosts in funding for border enforcement activities. In the years after the enactment of IRCA, research has revealed that the two major compromise provisions, together with the agricultural workers provision, generated mixed results. Employer sanctions failed to curtail unauthorized migration much, in all likelihood because of minimal funding for enforcement, while legalization and the agricultural measures resulted in widespread enrollment, with almost all of the unauthorized migrants who qualified coming forward to take advantage of the opportunity to become U.S. legalized permanent residents (LPRs). But when the agricultural workers provisions allowing entry of temporary workers are juxtaposed with the relatively unenforceable employer-sanctions provisions, IRCA entailed contradictory elements that created frustration for some observers. In sociocultural, political, and historical terms, scholars and others can interpret IRCA’s legalization as reflecting the inclusive, pluralistic, and expansionist tendencies characteristic of much of 18th-century U.S. immigration. But some of IRCA’s other elements led to contradictory effects, with restriction efforts being offset by the allowances for more temporary workers. This helped to spawn subsequent political pressures in favor of new restrictive or exclusive immigration controls that created serious hazards for immigrants.

The U.S. fertility transition in the nineteenth century is unusual. Not only did it start from a very high fertility level and very early in the nation's development, but it also took place long before the nation's mortality transition, industrialization, and urbanization. This paper assembles new county-level, household-level, and individual-level data for census years 1800-1880 to evaluate different theories for the nineteenth-century American fertility transition. We construct county-level models of child-woman ratios in all census years and couple-level models of marital fertility in census years 1830-1880. We find evidence of marital fertility control consistent with hypotheses as early as 1835. The results indicate support for several different but complimentary theories of the early U.S. fertility decline, including the land availability, local labor market/child default, conventional structuralist, ideational, and life-cycle savings theories. We emphasize discussion of the life-cycle savings hypothesis, which has received limited empirical study to date.

Concerned about the low academic ability of public school teachers, in the 1990s and 2000s, some states increased licensing stringency to weed out low-quality candidates, while others decreased restrictions to attract high-quality candidates. We offer a theoretical model justifying both reactions. Using data from 1991–2007 on licensing requirements and teacher quality—as measured by the selectivity of teachers’ undergraduate institutions—we find that stricter licensing requirements, especially those emphasizing academic coursework, increase the left tail of the quality distribution for secondary school teachers without significantly decreasing quality for high-minority or high-poverty districts.

Research has increasingly moved toward a consensus that violent crime declines as neighborhoods gentrify, yet some studies find the direction of this relationship varies by type of violent crime. This finding becomes even more important when connected with recent research that finds the structural influences of gang and non-gang homicide are disparate. The current study engages with research in each of these areas by examining the relationship of gentrification with levels of total, gang, and non-gang homicide in Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) Hollenbeck Community Policing Area. We find gentrification was not associated with variation in total or gang homicide, but was positively associated with non-gang homicide.

The paper presents and analyses a general equilibrium occupational choice model with labour market frictions and heterogeneous agents. The main theoretical contribution of this model is that, unlike previous directed search models, it allows agents to self-select not only into different sectors but also into an entrepreneurial/managerial career or a regular employment career. Making use of a stochastic output and of positive assortative matching, the model gives rise to possible equilibria where the highest ability agents become either workers or entrepreneurs/managers in the technologically intensive sector. Considering the equilibrium where workers are drawn from the middle of the ability distribution, I find that, consistent with stylized facts, an increased regional technological development increases both top income inequality and the entrepreneurship rate in the technologically intensive sector.

I investigate whether changes to labor market frictions can explain rising wage inequality in the US. I combine the production framework in Krusell et al. (2000), which emphasizes capital skill complementarity as an explanation for rising wage inequality, with the sequential auction search model of Postel-Vinay and Robin (2002). The presence of search frictions, and hence monopsonistic power, provides a range of explanations for rising wage inequality not present in competitive models i.e. changes to job flows, firm heterogeneity or bargaining power. I find that differences in search frictions between skilled and unskilled workers can explain the presence of a positive skill premium but not its growth. Estimates of capitalskill complementarity in Krusell et al. (2000) are therefore robust to including search frictions.