During the Age of Mass Migration (1850-1913), the United States maintained an open border, absorbing 30 million European immigrants. Prior cross-sectional work finds that immigrants initially held lower-paid occupations than natives but converged over time. In newly assembled panel data, we show that, in fact, the average immigrant did not face a substantial occupation-based earnings penalty upon first arrival and experienced occupational advancement at the same rate as natives. Cross-sectional patterns are driven by biases from declining arrival cohort skill level and departures of negatively selected return migrants. We show that assimilation patterns vary substantially across sending countries and persist in the second generation.

This book fosters a deeper understanding of the growing Latino elderly population and the implications on society. It examines post-WWII demographic and social changes and summarizes research from sociology, psychology, economics, and public health to shed light on the economic, physical, and mental well-being of older Latinos. The political and cultural implications including possible policy changes are also considered. Written in an engaging style, each chapter opens with a vignette that puts a human face on the issues. Boxed exhibits highlight social programs and policies and physical and mental health challenges that impact Latino elders. Web alerts direct readers to sites that feature more detailed information related to the chapters issues. Each chapter also features an introduction, examples, tables, figures, a summary, and discussion questions. The self-contained chapters can be presented in any order.

This project addresses two policy questions. The first policy question seeks to address how poverty rates vary by family structure using the original poverty measure vs. the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). The second policy question investigates how the receipt of four safety net program benefits (SNAP, WIC, TANF, and the EITC) affect the poverty rate using the SPM, by family structure. Background The original poverty measure was developed in 1963 (Fisher 1992). The poverty measure is an incredibly important measure, as it determines who is poor in the United States and is often used as a threshold to determining eligibility for government benefit programs. Aside from adjustments for inflation, the poverty measure has changed little since its inception (Fisher 1992). The original poverty measure has many limits and recently a new measure was created to more accurately measure poverty (Smith 2009). The new measure is called the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), and includes several enhancements to the original poverty measure. The SPM includes adjustments for geographic location, in-kind benefits such as SNAP and WIC, transportation, healthcare,childcare costs, and modern family configuration including resource sharing among unmarried partners (commonly known as cohabiting couples) (Short 2013). I investigated the anti-poverty effects of four social safety net programs SNAP, WIC, TANF, and the EITC. I looked at these programs in particular because they serve my population of interest,families with children. Data & Methodology I used data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a nationally representative survey of the non-institutionalized American population. The CPS collects detailed information on household income and structure, and is one of the preeminent sources of information on...

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as the Food Stamp Program, provides monthly subsidies specifically for the purchase of food. The value of the monthly benefit is calculated based on income and number of individuals living in the household. In this brief, we summarize facts about this program, provide a quick look at 2012 SNAP participation in Virginia, and review ways in which the program is changing.

This report identifies specific mechanisms by which out-of-school time (OST) programs can build effective bridges to encourage and affirm academic success among Black male students. Conceptually, we believe that existing OST programs that focus on workforce development, healthy lifestyles, safety and structure, and strong families can incorporate key elements that will influence Black males adjustment to school.

Historically, it was colonialism and slavery that introduced the large-scale displacement of labor forces around the globe. While white colonial settlers relocated to explore and exploit new territories, slaves were captured, uprooted, and forced to work for free . . .

This study examines three data sets from the recently released American Community Survey (ACS) of 2013 to estimate the population sizes of the largest Latino national sub groups in New York City and in the Citys surrounding counties. These are the Public Use Microdata Samples, the ACS 1-Year Sample, and the ACS 3-Year Sample.

The recent public debt crisis in most developed economies implies an urgent need for increasing tax revenues or cutting government spending. In this paper we study the importance of household heterogeneity and the progressivity of the labor income tax schedule for the ability of the government to generate tax revenues. We develop an overlapping generations model with uninsurable idiosyncratic risk, endogenous human capital accumulation as well as labor supply decisions along the intensive and extensive margins. We calibrate the model to macro, micro and tax data from the US as well as a number of European countries, and then for each country characterize the labor income tax Laffer curve under the current country-specific choice of the progressivity of the labor income tax code. We find that more progressive labor income taxes significantly reduce tax revenues. For the US, converting to a flat tax code raises the peak of the laffer curve by 7%. We also find that modeling household heterogeneity is important for the shape of the Laffer curve.

This report applies the Virginia Poverty Measure, developed and published by the Demographics Research Group in 2013, to an examination of childhood poverty (poverty among those under 18 years of age) by family type in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

"Chilling effects" are a popular explanation for low program take-up rates among immigrants, but the effects of an icy policy climate are inherently hard to measure. This paper finds robust evidence that heightened federal immigration enforcement reduces Medicaid participation among children of noncitizens, even when children are themselves citizens. The decline in immigrant Medicaid participation around the time of welfare reform is largely explained by a contemporaneous spike in enforcement activity. The results imply that safety net participation is influenced not only by program design, but also by a broader set of seemingly unrelated policy choices.

Demographic changes, such as increases in cohabitation, divorce, and single parenthood as well as the delay in marriage entry and decrease in remarriage, continue to shape American families and households (Cherlin, 2010). The effects of these changes over time, however, differ across race/ethnicity and educational levels (Kennedy & Bumpass, 2008; Manning, 2013; Teachman, et al. 2000). This profile presents changes in the proportion of U.S. single, cohabiting couple, and married couple households across race/ethnicity between 1995 and 2012.

Between 1980 and 2010 the Colombian-origin population of the New York metropolitan area and its surrounding counties (see Map 1) increased from 74,141 to 225,603. (See figure 1). Over these thirty years Colombians increased marginally as a percentage of all Latinos in the region from 3.8% in 1980 to 5.0% in 2010.

I investigate whether diseases subject to more rapid pharmaceutical innovation experienced greater declines in Americans disability days and use of medical services during the period 19972010, controlling for several other factors, using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. The mean number of work loss days, school loss days, and hospital admissions declined more rapidly among medical conditions with larger increases in the mean number of new (post-1990) prescription drugs consumed. The value of reductions in work loss days and hospital admissions attributable to pharmaceutical innovation is estimated to be three times as large as the cost of new drugs consumed.

El conocimiento del agarre humano es fundamental para el desarrollo de sistemas artificiales que remplacen la mano natural por sistemas mecnicos, como prtesis u otro tipo de ayudas. Un dato fundamental para orientar el desarrollo y la programacin de estos manipuladores artificiales es el anlisis de la frecuencia con la que se utilizan los diferentes tipos de agarres. A este respecto existen pocos trabajos en la bibliografa. En este trabajo se presentan los resultados preliminares de un estudio de campo sobre el agarre humano en actividades cotidianas en la vida diaria no profesional. El anlisis se ha realizado a travs de la filmacin de diferentes tareas representativas de los diferentes mbitos de la vida personal como aseo personal, preparacin de comida, comer, limpieza y orden en casa, conduccin, etc. No se han tenido en cuenta tareas laborales, ya que por su especificidad deberan ser abordadas por separado. Se han realizado casi 200 filmaciones, de las cuales se han seleccionado como representativas para un anlisis en profundidad 64 vdeos de 24 personas. El anlisis ha consistido, en la divisin de la tarea en agarres elementales y, de cada uno de ellos, registrar el tipo de agarre utilizado (de una clasificacin especfica de 9 tipos desarrollada para este trabajo), la accin realizada, las manos y zonas de las manos implicadas y su duracin, para tener una idea de la importancia y frecuencia con que se usan. Los resultados muestran que los tipos de agarre ms utilizados en tareas cotidianas son: el agarre de pinza, el agarre no prensil, el cilndrico, la pinza lateral y el lumbrical. Aunque el agarre de pinza es el ms frecuente a nivel general, su presencia en los distintos mbitos de la vida cotidiana es muy diferente, siendo muy utilizado en la preparacin de comida, y muy poco utilizado en el mbito de la conduccin.

We examine differences in household specialization between same-sex and different-sex couples within and across three birth cohorts: Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y. Using three measures of household specialization, we find that same-sex couples are less likely than their different-sex counterparts to exhibit a high degree of specialization. However, the "specialization gap" between same-sex and different-sex couples narrows across birth cohorts. These findings are indicative of a cohort effect. Our results are largely robust to the inclusion of a control for the presence of children and for subsets of couples with and without children. We provide three potential explanations for why the specialization gap narrows across cohorts. First, different-sex couples from more recent birth cohorts may have become more like same-sex couples in terms of household specialization. Second, social and legal changes may have prompted a greater degree of specialization within same-sex couples relative to different-sex couples. Last, the advent of reproductive technologies, which made having children easier for same-sex couples from more recent birth cohorts, could result in more specialization in such couples relative todifferent-sex couples.

We examine the e¤ect of increased demand for social insurance on church membership. Our empirical strategy exploits the di¤erential impact of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 across counties to identify a shock to the demand for social insurance. We …nd that ‡ooded counties experienced a signi…cant increase in church membership. Consistent with economic theories about determinants of membership of religious organizations, our result suggests that local churches provided ex-post insurance for the needy and in return gained new members.

What determines the distributions of skills, occupations, and industries across cities? We develop a theory to jointly address these fundamental questions about the spatial organization of economies. Our model incorporates a system of cities, their internal urban structures, and a high-dimensional theory of factor-driven comparative advantage. It predicts that larger cities will be skill-abundant and specialize in skill-intensive activities according to the monotone likelihood ratio property. We test the model using data on 270 US metropolitan areas, 3 to 9 educational categories, 22 occupations, and 21 manufacturing industries. The results provide support for our theory's predictions.