Employment & Wages

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America’s greatest economic resource lies in the skill and energy of its workforce, yet the productivity gains of recent decades have not translated into rising incomes for many working families. While incomes have increased by nearly 400 percent for the top 0.1 percent of Americans over the last forty years, annual earnings of the median American male have declined by 28 percent. This trajectory of unbalanced income growth has eroded middle-class living standards, restricted opportunities for lower-income households, and undermined the nation’s social fabric. The Hamilton Project explores innovative proposals that help create jobs, enhance productivity, and secure the promise of the American Dream that each generation can achieve more than the last.

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NEW PAPER

Should the United States Have 2.2 Million More Jobs?

Papers • May 2013 • Michael Greenstone, Adam Looney

Following the last five recessions in U.S. history, the economy added government jobs—an average of 1.7 million, in fact—that helped spur our economic recovery. In contrast, during our recovery from the Great Recession, the economy has shed more than 500,000 government jobs. In this month’s employment analysis, The Hamilton Project explores the trajectory of public-sector employment since the Great Recession. The findings show that if the policy response to this recession had been similar to the response after other recent recessions, the economy would have about 2.2 million more jobs today.

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NEW PAPER

Using Data to Improve the Performance of Workforce Training

Papers • April 2013 • Louis S. Jacobson, Robert J. LaLonde

Workforce training programs have the potential to improve the lives and incomes of millions of Americans by lifting many into the middle class and preventing others from falling out of it. Despite their promise, however, too many workers enroll in courses that they do not complete or complete courses that do not lead to better jobs, reducing the benefits to workers and the economic return to workforce investments. Louis Jacobson of New Horizons Economic Research and Robert LaLonde of the University of Chicago propose a competition to increase the return on training investments by developing the data and measures necessary to provide the information prospective trainees need, by presenting the information in user-friendly “report cards,” by providing help for prospective trainees to use the information effectively, and by creating incentives for states to implement permanent information systems once they prove cost-effective.

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NEW PAPER

An Evidence-Based Approach to Improving Worker Training Programs

Papers • April 2013 • Michael Greenstone, Adam Looney

There is significant pressure facing policymakers at all levels of government to fund programs that provide the best results for the best value. Worker training programs provide one example of where better use of evidence could dramatically improve outcomes for many Americans. In this month’s employment analysis, The Hamilton Project explores how the use of evidence and data could help workers determine which training programs can most effectively help them find employment and increase their earnings.

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NEW PAPER

Sequestration’s Threat to America’s Most Vulnerable

Papers • March 2013 • Michael Greenstone, Adam Looney

In this month’s employment analysis, The Hamilton Project looks at current poverty trends in the United States, the important role of government support programs, and how sequestration could remove critical aspects of the safety net in the midst of continued labor-market weakness. The Project finds sequestration could throw many American families back into poverty during this sensitive period of economic recovery by cutting the very programs that are helping them stay above water.

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NEW PAPER

An Evidence-Based Path to Disability Insurance Reform

Papers • February 2013 • Jeffrey B. Liebman, Jack A. Smalligan

Jeffrey Liebman and Jack Smalligan propose a path to improve our disability insurance system, through demonstration projects and administrative changes, that could potentially increase employment and economic engagement among workers with disabilities and provide more rapid and reliable resolution of disability insurance claims for those who cannot work.

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15 Ways to Rethink the Federal Budget

Papers • February 2013

As policymakers work to find solutions to reduce the federal budget deficit, The Hamilton Project presents 15 pragmatic, evidenced-based proposals that would both reduce the deficit and also bring broader economic benefits from leading experts from a variety of backgrounds.

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15 Ideas for Smart Deficit Reduction

Papers • February 2013 • Michael Greenstone, Adam Looney

Hamilton Project Director Michael Greenstone and Policy Director Adam Looney preview The Project’s forthcoming budget report, which includes fifteen pragmatic, evidenced-based proposals to reduce the deficit and achieve broad-based economic benefits.

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The Hamilton Project Policy Response to the State of the Union Address

Papers • February 2013

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama outlined an ambitious second-term agenda focusing on policies to help strengthen America’s middle class through broad-based economic growth. Since its launch in 2006, The Hamilton Project has released a range of targeted policy proposals that provide innovative, evidence-based approaches to address many of the priorities set forth in this year’s address, which we offer as a resource to policymakers in response to specific ideas mentioned by the President this week.

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Not All Cuts Are Created Equal: Why Smart Deficit Reduction Matters

Papers • February 2013 • Michael Greenstone, Adam Looney

The federal budget deficit is still the nation’s major economic focus. In this month’s employment analysis, The Hamilton Project explores the potential impacts of enacted budget cuts, including the looming sequester, on America’s economic well-being. The Project finds that smart deficit reduction will require creative thinking about which budget areas can be made more efficient without damaging programs that are essential to promoting economic growth.

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The Fiscal Cliff Deal and Our Long-Run Budget Challenge

Papers • January 2013 • Michael Greenstone, Adam Looney

This week, lawmakers passed the American Taxpayer Relief Act to avoid much of the near-term drag on the economy that could have been triggered by the tax increases and spending cuts in the so-called fiscal cliff. In this month’s employment analysis, The Hamilton Project explores the projected effects of the bill on economic growth and the long-run budget deficit. The Project finds that the immediate budgetary effects of the bill are a positive step, but the debt-to-GDP level will continue to rise and lawmakers face more work in the months ahead.

All Employment & Wages Papers…

Ratio of Government Employment to Population

May 7, 2013 • Charts

While the private sector has added jobs to the economy in every month since March 2010, a total increase of approximately 6.8 million jobs through April 2013, the public sector has contracted. To put this in perspective, federal, state, and local governments added jobs in only twelve of the thirty-eight months between March 2010 and April 2013 and have lost more than 625,000 jobs over this period. This figure shows the ratio of government employment to the civilian non-institutional population going back to 1980. For the twenty years prior to the Great Recession, this ratio stayed relatively constant, but since then it has dropped precipitously (except for the temporary uptick in 2010 when government employment rose to accommodate demand for U.S. Census workers). The ratio of government employment to population is currently at a decades-long low: it has not been below 9 percent since the mid-1960s.

Evolution of the “Job Gap” and Possible Scenarios for Growth

May 3, 2013 • Charts

The Hamilton Project tracks the monthly “job gap,” which is the number of jobs that need to be created in order to return to pre-recession employment levels while still absorbing the workers entering the labor force each month.

Median Earnings and Distribution of Students by Attainment in Community Colleges

April 5, 2013 • Charts

Many workers can benefit substantially from worker training programs, which provide education and skill development that lead to increased economic opportunities and better jobs. Students who earn two-year degrees in a high-return field, four-year degrees after a two-year degree, or certain career-oriented certificates, earn median salaries of $34,000 or more per year. Students who earn two-year degrees in low-return fields or who do not complete their programs earn around 33 percent less. Using data to help prospective trainees make better, informed decisions on which training programs offer the best returns based on trainee-specific criteria can help put more workers on a path to greater prosperity.

State-by-State “Jobs Gap”

March 29, 2013 • Charts

Every month, The Hamilton Project tracks the “jobs gap,” which is the number of jobs that need to be created in order to return to pre-recession employment levels while still absorbing the workers entering the labor force each month. Here, the Project compares changes in employment levels since the onset of the Great Recession across states.

Non-Defense Discretionary Outlays

March 14, 2013 • Charts

This figure shows the effects of the recent budget changes, including the sequester, on non-defense discretionary spending. Under these cuts this category of spending would fall to its lowest level in recent history. In today’s increasingly competitive global economy, many Americans have seen their wages stagnate or even decline over the last several decades, and non-defense discretionary spending includes the public investments that, for generations, have helped improve the lives of Americans and provide economic opportunities of the working and middle classes. Reductions in these spending categories mean less funding for the National Science Foundation, less research into new sources of energy, less training and workforce development, and less spending on education through initiatives such as Pell Grants. This funding provides support to our ailing infrastructure, enables research and development to improve health and foster innovation, and increases access to higher education at a time when we have fallen from second to fifteenth in international college completion rates.

When will we reach 6.5 percent unemployment?

January 15, 2013 • Charts

The announcement by the Federal Reserve Board that it will not increase the interest rate until the unemployment rate falls below 6.5 percent raises the question of when we will reach this unemployment level. If the job-creation rate holds at last year’s pace, we will reach the Fed’s benchmark in about two and a half years.

Number of Unemployed Per Job Opening

January 15, 2013 • Charts

Millions of Americans lost their jobs during the recession, and even though the economy has been recovering for several years, it is still more difficult for unemployed individuals to find a job now than it was before the recession. One way to observe this is to measure how many unemployed Americans there are per job opening. As this graph shows, although we have come down from the height of the recession—when there were more than six unemployed people per job opening—we still have not reached pre-recession employment levels.

College Completion

January 15, 2013 • Charts

College education has historically driven increases in labor productivity, which in turn lead to wage growth. This same trend has emerged during the last 40 years. As women’s college-graduation rates jumped over 20 percentage points since 1970 , female workers’ wages increased by similarly high rates. Men’s college-graduation rates, on the other hand, have been relatively flat over this period, and male workers have thus experienced no wage growth in recent decades.

Return on Investment to a Bachelor’s Degree

January 15, 2013 • Charts

Despite widespread claims that a college degree is no longer worth the rising price of tuition, a bachelor’s degree still has about the same return on investment today as it did in the 80s. College still pays for itself, and then some; it will earn you, on average, a 16 percent return, which is a higher rate of return than on investments in the stock market (6.8 percent), corporate bonds (2.9 percent), gold (2.3 percent), long-term government bonds (2.2 percent), or housing (0.4 percent).

Increase in Pretax Earnings After a 10 Percent Tax Cut: Tax cuts have relatively small effects on the amounts people work.

May 2, 2012 • Charts

This chart uses the economic evidence from twenty-three published studies cited in Chetty (2011) to illustrate how a 10 percent cut in individual income tax rates might increase the pretax earnings of the typical tax-paying family earning about $70,000 per year.

All Charts…

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Testimony of Alan S. Blinder

January 26, 2012 • Alan S. Blinder

Advisory Council member Alan S. Blinder testifies before the Senate Budget Committee on his views on the economy and budget.

All Speeches & Testimony…

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Investing in What Works: The Importance of Evidence-Based Policymaking

April 17, 2013 • Washington, DC 20001

On April 17th, The Hamilton Project at Brookings and Results for America, an initiative of America Achieves, co-hosted a forum and released two new papers on the important role of evidence in policymaking. U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), Alan Krueger, Chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and other distinguished experts participated in roundtable discussions on the proposals and how evidence-based policymaking can improve the effectiveness of federally funded programs.

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Extending Unemployment Insurance — A Live Web Chat with THP Policy Director Adam Looney

December 5, 2012 • Online Chat

The lame-duck Congress has a long “to-do” list in the final month of the year. Negotiations on a compromise to avoid the fiscal cliff are underway, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are also discussing whether or not to extend unemployment insurance for 12 million unemployed Americans before the benefits expire on December 29. What are the economic consequences of failing to extend unemployment benefits? Who will be most affected? What weight should we give to news from the Congressional Budget Office that extending benefits will add more than 300,000 jobs to the economy? On Wednesday, December 5, THP Policy Director Adam Looney will take your questions in a live web chat moderated by Vivyan Tran at POLITICO. For more information or to register for the webchat, click here.

Submit questions in advance to communications@brookings.edu.

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FEATURED

Back to School: Promoting Attainment and Achievement in K-12 Education

September 27, 2012 • Washington, DC

On September 27th, The Hamilton Project at Brookings hosted a forum to discuss new approaches to promoting attainment and achievement in K-12 education. The event included featured remarks by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, highlighting recent progress on education reform, the difficult work still ahead, and the need for innovation to help advance reform efforts.

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U.S. Immigration Policy: The Border Between Reform and the Economy

May 15, 2012 • Washington, DC 20045

America’s immigration policy no longer serves the needs of our fast-changing global economy. Failure to address immigration reform at the national level has resulted in missed opportunities to spur America’s economic growth and productivity. On May 15, The Hamilton Project held a forum exploring the challenges and opportunities for immigration reform in today’s political and economic climate.

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Training America’s Workforce for the Future: New Policies to Boost Employment and Wages

November 30, 2011 • Washington, DC

On November 30, The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution held a forum and released new policy proposals on training programs geared toward the needs of today’s workforce. In a rapidly changing global economy, the skills of some workers have become obsolete while other skills are in short supply. By collaborating with industry partners and using evidence about what works, training programs can better prepare workers for jobs with high-demand, both now and in the future.

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The Future of American Jobs, Part II

December 3, 2010 • Washington, DC

The Hamilton Project and the Center for American Progress hosted the second of two conferences addressing the long-term challenges of creating quality jobs in the United States and preparing American workers for those jobs of the future. As part of the event, The Hamilton Project and the Center for American Progress released three targeted policy proposals by outside scholars to deal with the long-term challenges associated with the new global economy.

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Hard Times, Solid Policies to Renew American Communities

October 13, 2010 • Washington, DC

Governor Jennifer Granholm (D-Mich.) joined former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin, New York City Deputy Mayor Steve Goldsmith, and other experts in a Hamilton Project forum focused on policy solutions for renewing American communities. The Hamilton Project released a strategy paper and three new proposals that provide a range of options for helping communities and workers recover from recent economic shocks.

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The Future of American Jobs

April 30, 2010 • Washington, DC

The Hamilton Project partnered with the Center for American Progress to host a forum on the country’s employment situation. The event featured a discussion with New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and NEC director Lawrence H. Summers, moderated by PBS host Charlie Rose.

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From Prison to Work: Overcoming Barriers to Reentry

December 5, 2008 • Washington, DC

The Hamilton Project hosted a policy discussion on the challenges of prisoner reentry that featured a keynote address by U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.). The event also featured a policy roundtable with a diverse group of experts on the need for a national prisoner reentry strategy.

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Facilitating and Rewarding Work

December 12, 2007 • Washington, DC

The Project hosted a two-part forum on ways to encourage, facilitate, and reward work. Jason Furman provided an overview of a strategy paper, which suggested a long-term approach to expanding opportunity, along with specific near-term policies to promote work and reduce poverty.

All Events…

Ratio of Government Employment to Population

May 7, 2013 • Charts

Evolution of the “Job Gap” and Possible Scenarios for Growth

May 3, 2013 • Charts

Investing in What Works: The Importance of Evidence-Based Policymaking—Photo Gallery

April 19, 2013 • Photo Galleries

On April 17th, The Hamilton Project at Brookings and Results for America, an initiative of America Achieves, co-hosted a forum and release two new papers on the important role of evidence in policymaking. U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), Alan Krueger, Chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and other distinguished experts participated in roundtable discussions on the proposals and how evidence-based policymaking can improve the effectiveness of federally funded programs.

Investing in What Works: The Importance of Evidence-Based Policymaking—Introduction & Panel 1

April 18, 2013 • Video

Founder & Chairman of Evercore Partners Roger Altman provided welcoming remarks to kick off this forum co-hosted by The Hamilton Project and Results for America. In the first panel discussion, Jeffrey Liebman of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and Louis Jacobson of New Horizons Economic Research presented new proposals on the crucial role of evidence and results in policymaking. The authors were joined by former White House Domestic Policy Council Director John Bridgeland, New York City Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs, Results for America Managing Director Michele Jolin and Hamilton Project Director Michael Greenstone for a discussion of the new papers.

Investing in What Works: The Importance of Evidence-Based Policymaking—Panel 2

April 18, 2013 • Video

U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), and Alan Krueger, Chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, joined former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin for a roundtable discussion on the importance of harnessing evidence to improve the effectiveness of federally funded programs.