Posts tagged National Bureau of Economic Research
‘Fight for $15’? How quaint. Powerful Chicago union now wants $25 per hour minimum wage – Wirepoints
December 1, 2022 // Order employers to pay at least $25 per hour. That’s the new position of Chicago’s powerful chapter of SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, as reported by Crain’s and ABC Chicago. It would be a 60% increase in Chicago’s current wage of $15.40 per hour. SEIU wants candidates for Chicago mayor, alderman and other city offices to take a position on that increase, and “the group appears quite serious about that,” according to Crain’s. So far, no candidate has said no to the increase, SEIU told Crain’s. The union’s full candidate questionnaire is here. It seems like the ink on Fight for 15 posters has barely dried. That movement to push wages up to $15 per hour might appear to be largely successful on the surface. The Fight for $15’s “success is inspirational” to labor activists, as The Guardian reported last week.
Feds: Low unemployment, inflation, recession have economy at crossroads
September 6, 2022 // “Further, many structural barriers existed before the pandemic, including weaker skills, lack of access to affordable, good-quality child care, transportation problems, incarceration, addiction and discrimination,” they wrote. “Individually and collectively, they reduce job matching efficiency.” While they note an economy is in recession when gross domestic product falls in two consecutive quarters, they also state the National Bureau of Economic Research’s definition of a recession relies on a variety of indicators. If we’re in a recession or entering one, economists can’t predict its effects on employment.
Another Weirdness of the COVID Labor Market
September 2, 2022 // The early retirements problem came into view as pandemic unemployment “cleared” and the labor market returned to status quo ante. The 65-plus group accounts for between 50 percent and 100 percent of the decline in the population-to-employment ratio, amounting to .7 percent of the entire workforce, perhaps a million or so workers, and about half that number were among those who chose to hang up their cleats ahead of time. These early retirements are interacting with the overall market in some unique ways. In a normal recession, businesses tend to cut labor costs through automation. As the old jobs are eliminated, workers are “reallocated,” meaning they move into new occupations. The NBER study finds that the COVID-19 recession saw almost no reallocation except in low-skill leisure and hospitality occupations. In the meantime, the number of workers in professional occupations grew as a share of the labor market. This relative expansion of professional jobs was also accompanied by “downskilling” (i.e., the relaxation of educational and experience requirements reflected in help-wanted ads) as firms responded to the tight labor market by making it easier for less credentialed workers to qualify for openings further up the value chain.