Large shocks to local labor markets cause lasting changes to communities and their residents. We examine four main channels through which the local labor force adjusts following mass layoffs: in- and out-migration, retirement, and disability insurance enrollment. We show that these channels account for over half of the labor force reductions following a mass layoff event. By measuring the residual difference between these channels and labor force change, we also show that labor force non-participation grew in the period during and after the Great Recession. This result highlights the growing importance of non-participation as a response to labor demand shocks.
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RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY ACROSS LOCAL AREAS IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF THE HEALTHY POPULATION
February 2014
Working Paper Number:
CES-14-14
Determining whether population dynamics provide competing explanations to place effects for observed geographic patterns of population health is critical for understanding health inequality. We focus on the working-age population where health disparities are greatest and analyze detailed data on residential mobility collected for the first time in the 2000 US census. Residential mobility over a 5-year period is frequent and selective, with some variation by race and gender. Even so, we find little evidence that mobility biases cross-sectional snapshots of local population health. Areas undergoing large or rapid population growth or decline may be exceptions. Overall, place of residence is an important health indicator; yet, the frequency of residential mobility raises questions of interpretation from etiological or policy perspectives, complicating simple understandings that residential exposures alone explain the association between place and health. Psychosocial stressors related to contingencies of social identity associated with being black, urban, or poor in the U.S. may also have adverse health impacts that track with structural location even with movement across residential areas.
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The Work Disincentive Effects of the Disability Insurance Program in the 1990s
February 2006
Working Paper Number:
CES-06-05
In this paper we evaluate the work disincentive effects of the Disability Insurance program during the 1990s. To accomplish this we construct a new large data set with detailed information on DI application and award decisions and use two different econometric evaluation methods. First, we apply a comparison group approach proposed by John Bound to estimate an upper bound for the work disincentive effect of the current DI program. Second, we adopt a Regression-Discontinuity approach that exploits a particular feature of the DI eligibility determination process to provide a credible point estimate of the impact of the DI program on labor supply for an important subset of DI applicants. Our estimates indicate that during the 1990s the labor force participation rate of DI beneficiaries would have been at most 20 percentage points higher had none received benefits. In addition, we find even smaller labor supply responses for the subset of 'marginal' applicants whose disability determination is based on vocational factors.
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The Impact of 2010 Decennial Census Hiring on the Unemployment Rate
June 2020
Working Paper Number:
CES-20-19
The decennial census is the largest peacetime operation of the U.S. federal government. The Census Bureau hires hundreds of thousands of temporary workers to conduct the decennial census. The magnitude of this temporary workforce influences the national employment situation when enumeration efforts ramp up and when they recede. The impact of decennial census hiring on the headline number of payroll jobs added each month is well established, but previous work has not established how decennial census hiring affects the headline unemployment rate. We link the 2010 Decennial Applicant Personnel and Payroll System data to the 2010 American Community Survey to answer this question. We find that the large hiring surge in May 2010 came mostly from people already employed (40 percent) or from people who were unemployed (33 percent). We estimate that the workers hired for Census 2010 lowered the May 2010 unemployment rate by one-tenth of a percentage point relative to the counterfactual. This one-tenth of a percentage point is within the standard error for the official unemployment rate, and BLS press releases would denote a change in the unemployment rate of 0.1% or less as 'unchanged.' We also estimate that relative to the counterfactual, the more gradual changes in decennial census employment influenced the unemployment rate by less than one-tenth of a percentage point in every other month during 2010.
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Internal Migration in the U.S. During the COVID-19 Pandemic
September 2024
Working Paper Number:
CES-24-50
Survey and administrative internal migration data disagree on whether the COVID-19 pandemic increased or decreased mobility in the U.S. Moreover, though scholars have theorized and documented migration in response to environmental hazards and economic shocks, the novel conditions posed by a global pandemic make it difficult to hypothesize whether and how American migration might change as a result. We link individual-level data from the United States Postal Service's National Change of Address (NCOA) registry to American Community Survey (ACS) and Current Population Survey (CPS-ASEC) responses and other administrative records to document changes in the level, geography, and composition of migrant flows between 2019 and 2021. We find a 2% increase in address changes between 2019 and 2020, representing an additional 603,000 moves, driven primarily by young adults, earners at the extremes of the income distribution, and individuals (as opposed to families) moving over longer distances. Though the number of address changes returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2021, the pandemic-era geographic and compositional shifts in favor of longer distance moves away from the Pacific and Mid-Atlantic regions toward the South and in favor of younger, individual movers persisted. We also show that at least part of the disconnect between survey, media, and administrative/third-party migration data sources stems from the apparent misreporting of address changes on Census Bureau surveys. Among ACS and CPS-ASEC householders linked to NCOA data and filing a permanent change of address in their 1-year survey response reference period, only around 68% of ACS and 49% of CPS-ASEC householders also reported living in a different residence one year ago in their survey response.
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Local Labor Demand and Program Participation Dynamics
November 2016
Working Paper Number:
carra-2016-10
Estimates the effect of fluctuations in local labor conditions on the likelihood that existing participants are able to transition out of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Our primary data are SNAP administrative records from New York (2007-2012) linked to the 2010 Census at the person-level. We further augment these data by linking to industry-specific labor market indicators at the county-level. We find that local labor markets matter for the length of time individuals spend on SNAP, but there is substantial heterogeneity in estimated effects across local industries. While employment growth in industries with small shares of SNAP participants has no impact on SNAP exits, growth in local industries with creases the likelihood that recipients exit the program. We also observe corresponding increases in entries when these industries experience localized contractions. Notably, estimated industry effects vary across race groups and parental status, with Black Alone non-Hispanic, Hispanic, and mothers benefiting the least from improvements in local labor market conditions.
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The Impact of Unemployment Insurance Extensions On Disability Insurance Application and Allowance Rates
March 2013
Working Paper Number:
CES-13-10
Both unemployment insurance (UI) extensions and the availability of disability benefits have disincentive effects on job search. But UI extensions can reduce the efficiency cost of disability benefits if UI recipients delay disability application until they exhaust their unemployment benefits. This paper, the first to focus on the effect of UI extensions on disability applications, investigates whether UI eligibility, extension, and exhaustion affect the timing of disability applications and the composition of the applicant pool. Jobless individuals are significantly less likely to apply to Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) during UI extensions, and significantly more likely to apply when UI is ultimately exhausted. Healthier potential applicants appear more likely to delay, as state allowance rates increase after a new UI extension. Simulations find that a 13-week UI extension decreases SSDI and Medicare costs, offsetting about half of the increase in UI payments; this suggests that the benefits of UI extensions may be understated ' permanent disability benefits are diverted to shorter-run unemployment benefits and, potentially, new jobs, while easing the burden on the nearly insolvent SSDI Trust Fund.
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County-Level Estimates of the Employment Prospects of Low-Skill Workers
July 2000
Working Paper Number:
CES-00-11
This study examines low-skill wage and employment opportunities for men and women at the county level over the period 1989-96. Currently, reliable direct measures of wages and employment rates for different demographic and skill groups are only available for large geographic areas such as regions and populous states or at infrequent intervals (e.g., from the Decennial Census) for some smaller areas. This study constructs indirect annual measures for all counties from 1989-96 by combining skill-specific information on earnings and employment from the Sample Edited Detail File (SEDF) of the 1990 Decennial Census and the 1990-97 Annual Demographic files of the Current Population Survey (CPS) with annual industry-specific information from the Regional Economic Information System (REIS). Special versions of the SEDF and CPS files that identify county of residence are used. The study regresses the low-skill wage and employment data from the SEDF and CPS files on a set of personal variables from the combined files and local employment measures derived from the REIS. The wage regressions are corrected for selectivity from the employment decision and account for county-specific effects as well as general time effects. Estimates from the regressions are then combined with the available employment data from the REIS to impute wage and employment rates for low-skill adults across counties.
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The Effect of Wage Insurance on Labor Supply: A Test for Income Effects
October 2009
Working Paper Number:
CES-09-37
Studies of moral hazard in wage insurance programs such as Unemployment Insurance (UI) or Workers Compensation (WC) have demonstrated that higher benefits discourage work, emphasizing the price distortion inherent in benefit provision. Utilizing administrative data linking WC claim records to wage records from a UI payroll tax database, I find that the effect of WC benefits on the duration of benefit receipt cannot fully account for the effect of these benefits on post-injury unemployment. This indicates that a significant fraction of the effect of WC benefits on employment is due to an income effect rather than a price distortion.
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The Opportunities and Challenges of Linked IRS Administrative and Census Survey Records in the Study of Migration
July 2018
Working Paper Number:
carra-2018-06
This paper details efforts to link administrative records from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to American Community Survey (ACS) and 2010 Census microdata for the study of migration in the United States. Specifically, we (1) document our linkage strategy and methodology for inferring migration in IRS records; (2) model selection into and survival across IRS records to determine suitability for research applications; and (3) gauge the efficacy of the IRS records by demonstrating how they can be used to validate and potentially improve migration responses in ACS microdata. Our results show little evidence of selection or survival bias in the IRS records, suggesting broad generalizability to the nation as a whole. Moreover, we find that the combined IRS 1040, 1099, and W2 records may provide important information on populations that are hard to reach with traditional Census surveys. Finally, while preliminary, the results of our comparison of IRS and ACS migration responses shows that IRS records may be useful in improving ACS migration measurement for respondents whose migration response is proxy, allocated, or imputed. Taking these results together, we discuss the potential applications of our longitudinal IRS dataset to innovations in migration research in the United States.
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Long-Term Effects of Vietnam-Era Conscription: Schooling, Experience and Earnings
August 2007
Working Paper Number:
CES-07-23
Instrumental variables (IV) estimates using the draft lottery show that white Vietnam-era draftees suffered substantial post-service earnings losses in the 1970s and 1980s. Angrist (1990) explains these losses as due primarily to lost labor market experience. Non-public use data from the 2000 Census allow the first longerterm follow-up for a large sample from the draft-lottery cohorts. We use these data to estimate the effects of military service on earnings, schooling, and a number of other variables. Consistent with the loss-of -experience model, IV estimates of the effects of Vietnam-era service on earnings are close to zero in 2000, when the draft-lottery cohorts were middle-aged and experience profiles relatively flat. On the other hand, draft-lottery estimates show a marked increase in schooling for Vietnam-era veterans. A variety of evidence suggests this increase reflects the impact of the Vietnam-era GI Bill more than draft-avoidance behavior. The economic return to the increased schooling generated by Vietnam-era service, estimated in a wage equation that constrains the impact of Vietnam-era military service to run solely through the experience and schooling channels, appears to be less than the OLS return. Finally, we look at measures of disability. The IV estimates point to an increase in non-workrelated disability rates and non-SSA disability income, but the fact that there is no corresponding effect on employment, hours worked, or work-related disability rates suggests health was affected little by Vietnam-era service. Allowing for excess disability among veterans raises the estimated returns to GI-Bill schooling slightly.
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