This paper proposes that graduating in a recession can have long term positive implications for job satisfaction. In Studies 1 and 2, results from two large, nationally representative surveys showed that people who entered the workforce during economic downturns were more satisfied with their jobs even long after economic conditions had changed. A third cross-sectional study found that people who entered the workforce in bad economies were less likely to entertain upward counterfactuals about how they might have done better and more likely to feel grateful for their jobs, both of which mediated the relationship between workforce entry economic conditions and job satisfaction. While past research on job satisfaction has focused on dispositional and situational predictors, this paper suggests that early workforce environmental conditions can also have an enduring effect on job satisfaction.

Although the working poor are a much larger population than the unemployed poor, U.S. poverty research devotes much more attention to joblessness than to working poverty. Research that does exist on working poverty concentrates on demographics and economic performance and neglects institutions. Building on literatures on comparative institutions, unionization, and states as polities, we examine the influence of a potentially important labor market institution for working poverty: the level of unionization in a state. Using the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) for the United States, we estimate (1) multi-level logit models of poverty among employed households in 2010; and (2) two-way fixed-effects models of working poverty across seven waves of data from 1991 to 2010. Further, we replicate the analyses with the Current Population Survey while controlling for household unionization, and assess unionization's potential influence on selection into employment. Across all models, state-level unionization is robustly significantly negative for working poverty. The effects of unionization are larger than the effects of states' economic performance and social policies. Unionization reduces working poverty for both unionized and non-union households and does not appear to discourage employment. We conclude that U.S. poverty research can advance by devoting greater attention to working poverty, and by incorporating insights from the comparative literature on institutions.

The analysis in this paper finds that the dramatic decline in labor force participation during the Great Recession is more than explained by deteriorating labor market conditions (cyclical factors. Behavior adjusted over this time period to boost labor force participation so that it was higher in 2012 than would have been predicted by the model. Depending on the strength of the labor market going forward, we project anywhere from a further decline in the labor force participation rate of 0.8pp to an increase of 0.35pp by 2017

Medicaid home- and community-based services (HCBS) provide formal long-term care to people who would otherwise be served in institutions. HCBS include home health, personal care, and waiver services. The 1999 Olmstead vs L.C. ruling mandates states to serve Medicaid long-term care recipients in the least restrictive setting possible. The three studies in this mixed-methods dissertation seek to understand the political, socio-demographic, economic, policy, and supply influences on HCBS, the effect of greater HCBS spending on institutional expenditures, and challenges to HCBS expansion since the Olmstead ruling. HCBS spending and utilization are related to several key variables. Economic and supply factors have a robust relationship with HCBS expansion. Socio-demographic factors, notably state populations of racial and ethnic minorities, affect HCBS. However, these effects differ among home- and community-based programs. There is no consistent partisan influence on state HCBS spending and utilization. Greater state investment in 1915(c) waiver programs appears to have, at best, a neutral relationship or, at worst, a weak positive relationship with state institutional Medicaid long-term care spending. Thus, the results do not support prior work indicating that HCBS programs reduce institutional spending. In addition, supply and policy factors both have a robust relationship with institutional spending. Drawing on interviews with state Medicaid officials, this study identifies both barriers and catalysts to HCBS growth since Olmstead . Barriers to HCBS expansion include both financial, such as funding crises, as well as non-financial factors, such as administrative burdens. However, informants said that HCBS programs enjoy broad, bipartisan support from state policy makers as well as support from advocacy groups. This study provides a new contribution to understanding influences on state HCBS spending, the effects of HCBS on institutional care, and the barriers and catalysts to HCBS expansion since Olmstead . Given the implementation of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the population aging, and ongoing state fiscal crises, these findings will help guide future research in Medicaid HCBS.

We juxtapose the effects of trade and technology on employment in U.S. local labor markets between 1990 and 2007. Labor markets whose initial industry composition exposes them to rising Chinese import competition experience significant falls in employment, particularly in manufacturing and among non-college workers. Labor markets susceptible to computerization due to specialization in routine task-intensive activities experience significant occupational polarization within manufacturing and nonmanufacturing but no net employment decline. Trade impacts rise in the 2000s as imports accelerate, while the effect of technology appears to shift from automation of production activities in manufacturing towards computerization of information-processing tasks in non manufacturing.

This paper examines whether earning a college or graduate degree in a recession or an economic boom has lasting effects on job satisfaction. Across three studies, well-educated graduates who entered the workforce during economic downturns were more satisfied with their current jobs than those who entered during more prosperous economic times. Study 1 showed that economic conditions at college graduation predicted later job satisfaction even after accounting for different industry and occupational choices. Study 2 replicated these results and found that recession-era graduates were more satisfied with their jobs both early and later in their careers and even when they earned less money. A third cross-sectional study showed that people who entered the workforce in bad economies were less likely to entertain upward counterfactuals, or thoughts about how they might have done better, and more likely to feel grateful for their jobs, both of which mediated the relationship between economic conditions at workforce entry and job satisfaction. While past research on job satisfaction has focused largely on situational and dispositional antecedents, these results suggest that early workforce conditions also can have lasting implications for how people affectively evaluate their jobs.

States in Motion is an interactive motion chart that explores 16 different datasets, including NAEP test scores, teacher salaries and student enrollments in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. To get you started, States in Motion poses a series of questions, and attempts to answer them by comparing different datasets.

The first official U.S. federal poverty line was developed in the 1960s; since the mid-1990s the scientific consensus has been that it has become outdated and inaccurate. This article explains the key elements of the current federal measure that are inaccurate for older adults in general and older Latinos specifically. An alternative is described that addresses the key failings of the current measure. The alternative, the Elder Economic Security Standard Index (Elder Index), adapts a national methodology to the basic costs of living in California for 2007 using data from the American Community Survey, and other public data sources. The results show that the amount needed for basic economic security in California is higher than the federal poverty level in all counties, and averages about twice the federal level. Housing costs are the largest component of costs in most counties, although health care is the largest component for couples in lower housing cost counties. Among singles and couples age 65 and over in California, almost 60 % of Latinos have incomes below the Elder Index compared to one-quarter of non-Latino whites. The rates are higher among renters, and older Latinos are more likely than non-Latino whites to rent. Applying the Elder Index in California documents the disproportionate rates of economic insecurity among older Latinos. The findings indicate that changes to public programs such as Social Security and Medicare that decrease benefits or increase costs will have disproportionately negative impact on the ability of most older Latinos to pay for basic needs.

A partir del Censo de Electores Residentes-Ausentes (CERA) se describe, a nivel sociodemográfico, la geografía actual de los nacionales españoles en el mundo, su composición por lugar de nacimiento y su estructura demográfica. Se destaca que, gran parte del crecimiento del colectivo español en el exterior, es consecuencia del incremento de las inscripciones de descendientes españoles nacidos en el fuera. Ello ha supuesto el rejuvenecimiento de la diáspora española y su feminización. En cuanto a la distribución territorial de la diáspora destacan, como áreas que ganan población nacida en España, los países asiáticos y América del Norte, mientras se aprecia la pérdida de población española en otras regiones de importancia histórica como Europa. El auge de inscripciones de nacidos en el exterior se concentra en América Latina y significa un proceso de latinoamericanización de la diáspora.

The economy in Minnesota and around the world is rapidly shifting. "Talent" - higher-order skills and education - is increasingly the key that allows workers to unlock job prospects, higher earnings, greater net worth and a host of affiliated benefits. Several different employment projections forecast a percentage point increase in the total jobs requiring some post-secondary education by the close of the decade, with estimates of roughly 65 to 70 percent of new jobs requiring this. Talented workers are essential to Minnesota's current and future economic growth, especially in light of changing demographic trends - including a wave of Baby Boomer retirements, slower labor force growth, and an increasingly diverse workforce.

This study investigates the effect of early-life exposure to malaria on disease and work level in old age over the past one and a half centuries. Using longitudinal lifetime records of Union Army veterans, I first estimate that exposure to a malarial environment in early life (c.1840) substantially increased the likelihood of having various chronic diseases and not working in old age (c.1900). Second, from data on US cohorts born between 1891 and 1960,1 find that those exposed to a higher level of the anti-malaria campaign, which began in 1921, had lower levels of work disability in old age. Third, I seek the same implications for the modern period by linking WHO's country statistics on DALYs among older populations in 2004 to country-level malaria risk in pre-eradication era. In the paper, I discuss possible mechanisms and propose the significance of malaria eradication and early-life conditions from a long-term perspective.

Unemployment Insurance (UI) is the major social insurance program that protects against lost earnings resulting from involuntary unemployment. Existing literature finds that low-earning unemployed workers experience difficulty assessing UI benefits. The most prominent policy reform designed to increase rates of monetary eligibility, and thus UI receipt, among those unemployed workers is the Alternative Base Period (ABP). In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act sought to increase the use of ABP, making ABP adoption a necessary precondition for states to receive their share of the $7 billion targeted at UI programs. By January 2013, 40 states and the District of Columbia had adopted the ABP despite the absence of an evaluation of ABP efficacy using nationally representative data. This study analyzes Current Population Survey data from 1987 to 2011 to assess the efficacy of the ABP in increasing UI receipt among low-educated unemployed workers. We used a natural-experiment design to capture the combined behavioral and mechanical effects of the policy change. We found no association between state-level ABP adoption and individual UI receipt for all unemployed workers. However, among part-time unemployed workers with less than a high school degree, adoption of the ABP was associated with a 2.8 percentage point increase in the probability of UI receipt.

This paper identifies the factors influencing earnings gaps betweenmigrants belonging to old immigrant groups (defined as those with long established migration linkages with the receiving country) and those belonging to new immigrant groups. Earnings are conceptualized as a function of human capital, decomposed into the portion acquired in the home country and the portion acquired in the receiving country. It is hypothesized that poor transferability of human capital acquired at home dampens wages more for new than for old immigrant groups. Further, it is hypothesized that upon arrival in the destination, new immigrant groups accumulate human capital faster than old immigrant groups. The empirical analysis focuses on Albanians in the United States as a representative of a new immigrant group and Italians as a representative of an old immigrant group. The analysis is based on pooled data from the 2000 US Census 5% sample, and the 20012007 American Community Survey (ACS) 3% sample. Findings suggest that (1) Albanian immigrants earn substantially less than Italian immigrants; (2) human capital acquired at home has a positive impact on wages, but the level of human capital transferability is low for Albanians; (3) upon arrival, both Italian and Albanian immigrants accumulate human capital, but the speed of human capital accumulation is faster for Albanians than for Italians

This study examines the effect of the Chapter 58 health care reform in Massachusetts four years after implementation on rates of coverage through employersponsored plans (ESI) and self-reported health status. It documents whether the relative increase in ESI coverage rates found in Massachusetts one and two years after the reform have persisted. A difference-in-difference model is used to examine effects on coverage rates and health status after the reform. Non-elderly adults living in Massachusetts make up the treatment group and the control group is comprised of individuals living in other Northeastern states. The study uses data from the Current Population Survey from the pre-reform years 2001 to 2006 and post-reform years 2007 to 2010. Results show that for the non-elderly adult population coverage through ESI plans increased 3.4 percentage points in the four years since the reform, slightly more than indicated in earlier studies. Gains were especially large among the young adult, near elderly, less educated, and lower income populations. The Massachusetts population also showed a significant improvement in self-reported health status.

This paper focuses on protecting the privacy of individuals in publication scenarios where the attacker is expected to have only abstract or aggregate knowledge about each record. Whereas, data privacy research usually focuses on defining stricter privacy guarantees that assume increasingly more sophisticated attack scenarios, it is also important to have anonymization methods and guarantees that will address any attack scenario. Enforcing a stricter guarantee than required increases unnecessarily the information loss. Consider for example the publication of tax records, where attackers might only know the total income, and not its constituent parts. Traditional anonymization methods would protect user privacy by creating equivalence classes of identical records. Alternatively, in this work we propose an anonymization technique that generalizes attributes, only as much as needed to guarantee that aggregate values over the complete record, will create equivalence classes of at size k. The experimental evaluation on real data shows that the proposed method produces anonymized data that lie closer to the original ones, with respect to traditional anonymization algorithms.

This paper revisits the ways non-day work is usually measured and suggests a new measure focusing solely on work that occurs during the evening (6 p.m.9 p.m.). Traditionally, non-day work is measured by determining the worker's shift or categorizing all work not done during the traditional day as non-standard work. These measures of work are often used to measure how work affects activities such as childcare, time with spouse, and time for social activities. These activities, however, normally cluster during the evening. The rise in quality and availability of time diary data allows instead for a direct examination of evening work, rather than asking the respondents to talk about their usual day. The American Time Use Survey (ATUS) allows for an examination of how well shift and non-standard work measures evening work. This close examination shows the shift measure underestimate the prevalence of evening work, while the non-standard work measure overestimates the amount of evening work done in the overall population. The article concludes by showing the evening work measure is effective at predicting commonly held hypotheses about evening work and time with children.

Has there been an increase in positive assortative mating on the marriage market since 1960? How does positive assortative mating in the marriage market contribute to income inequality across households? These two questions are addressed here. To answer them, samples of hundreds and thousands of households from the United States Census Bureau are analyzed for the period 1960 to 2005.

This research assesses the prevalence and determinants of jobeducation mismatches among male immigrants in the United States between 1980 and 2009. The results suggest that educational attainment levels do not match occupational education requirements for almost half of all immigrants. Overeducation among high-skilled immigrants vastly exceeds that of comparable natives. Probit models of overeducation suggest that: (i) personal characteristics operate in similar fashion for immigrants and natives; (ii) immigrant brain waste is above average in gateway states, metropolitan areas and in prosperous high-wage areas; and (iii) proficiency in English and length of residence reduce the overeducation risk among high-skilled immigrants.