Recent iir_briefs items

The Limits of Ban-the-Box Legislation

Thu, 9 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Nationwide, 36 states and over 150 cities and counties have adopted what is widely known as “Ban the Box” (BtB) (NELP 2020). These policies require employers to remove conviction and arrest history questions from job applications and delay background checks until after a conditional offer has been made. The policy is designed to encourage employers to consider a job candidate’s qualifications first – without the stigma of a criminal record – in the hopes of reducing barriers to employment that justice-involved individuals face.

We imagine two ways that BtB might work. The first is by changing employers’ hiring practices. Existing research on the former indicates the policy does increase callback and hiring rates for people with criminal records (Agan and Starr 2016; Atkinson and Lockwood 2014; Berracasa et al. 2016; Shoag and Veuger 2016), but effects appear highly contingent on the race of the job seeker and on the employment sector. The second way that BtB...

Ensuring Alt-Labor Sustainability

Tue, 27 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Ensuring Alt-Labor Sustainability

Framing the Case for Supporting Immigrants

Tue, 26 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

To build support for a cause, activists frame issues in ways they think will resonate with the public. UC Berkeley researchers find that one of the primary tactics for activists—using a civil rights framework to frame an issue—can actually decrease public support. Particularly in the case of immigrant rights and legalization, activists should reevaluate their strategies in order to successfully persuade the public to adopt change.

Retaining Teachers of Color to Improve Student Outcomes

Thu, 19 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Low pay for teachers has received significant national attention, but having a diverse teaching workforce is also critical for improving student outcomes. A large but often ignored problem in America’s education system is the lack of diverse representation among teachers. There are very few male teachers of color in the classroom, and the turnover rate for ones that exist is disproportionately high. Retaining such teachers is a critical element in efforts to narrow the achievement gap and improve student outcomes.

Finding Employment After Contact with the Carceral System

Wed, 7 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

People who have been arrested, convicted of a crime, or incarcerated face many barriers to employment. While much of the difficulty in finding employment is due to institutional exclusion, a UC Berkeley researcher has attributed some of the problem to ineffective job search methods. What can policymakers do to ensure that people who have interacted with the carceral system can find employment?

The Post-Recession Labor Market: An Incomplete Recovery

Fri, 5 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Recovery from the Great Recession has been slow and extremely prolonged. It was tempting to conclude, at various points, that we had recovered as much as we were going to. Even after the official unemployment rate receded, other indicators of recovery remained much more mixed—the share of people employed remained well below pre-recession levels; wages were stagnant; and inequality continued to grow. Absent clear evidence of a full recovery, including healthy wage growth, policy efforts should emphasize ensuring that the benefits of growth are broadly shared.

The Great Recession, Families, and the Safety Net

Fri, 5 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The Great Recession caused significant hardship for many U.S. families. Safety net programs—some of which were expanded during the recession and its recovery—mitigated some of the worst effects, but were not available to all households and were insufficient to compensate for the depth of the downturn. What can policymakers learn from the adequacy of the response?

Working in the service sector in Connecticut

Mon, 8 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Nearly 250,000 workers are employed in the retail and food service sector in the state of Connecticut. Nationally, jobs in the service sector are characterized by low pay and few fringe benefits, and workers employed in the service sector have little control over the days and times that they will work. In addition, many service sector employers across the country rely on just-in-time and on-call scheduling practices designed to minimize labor costs by closely aligning staffing with consumer demand. These practices can introduce a great deal of instability into the lives of workers and their families.

What Really Caused the Great Recession?

Mon, 8 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The Great Recession devastated local labor markets and the national economy. Ten years later, Berkeley researchers are finding many of the same red flags blamed for the crisis: banks making subprime loans and trading risky securities. Congress just voted to scale back many Dodd-Frank provisions. Does another recession lie around the corner?

Working in the Service Sector in Philadelphia

Mon, 8 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Nearly 100,000 workers are employed in the retail and food service sector in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Nationally, jobs in the service sector are characterized by low pay and few fringe benefits, and workers employed in the service sector have little control over the days and times that they will work. In addition, many service sector employers across the country rely on just-in-time and on-call scheduling practices designed to minimize labor costs by closely aligning staffing with consumer demand. These practices can introduce a great deal of instability into the lives of workers and their families.

Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Update: California Expansion, Federal Inaction

Mon, 8 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is now the primary anti-poverty program in the U.S., but it has not kept up with wage stagnation. Berkeley faculty recently proposed an increase in the federal EITC, California has adopted an expansion of its own state EITC, and Congress passed a tax bill that fails to help EITC recipients.

State Policy Strategies for Narrowing the Gender Wage Gap

Mon, 8 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

#MeToo and #TimesUp protests about the treatment of women in the workplace have brought renewed attention to gender pay equity. This brief looks at three legislative solutions that aim to close the gap by increasing pay transparency and pushing employers to set salaries to the position, not the history of the person doing the job.

Revisiting the impact of Head Start

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This policy brief discusses new evidence regarding the effectiveness of Head Start. Head Start is the largest federal early intervention and education program in the United States, serving almost one million children in 2015. It was created in 1965 to narrow the gap between disadvantaged and more privileged children as they entered kindergarten, by providing comprehensive programming in preschool to improve children’s school readiness.

Can school finance reforms improve student achievement?

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The achievement gap between rich and poor students in the United States is large and growing. On average, children from low-income families have lower test scores, lower rates of high school and college completion, and eventually lower earnings than their peers from higher-income families. Addressing this is key to breaking the cycle of poverty an inequality across generations.

One contributing factor is differences in resources between schools attended by high- and low-income students. In our recent paper, “School Finance Reform and the Distribution of Student Achievement,” we show that school resources play a major role in student achievement, and that finance reforms can effect major improvements in student achievement in low-income school district. Accordingly, states that have implemented reforms have seen steady declines in the test score gap between high- and low-income school districts, over a period when states that did not implement reforms saw rising gaps.

Where Did All the Migrants Farm Workers Go?

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Since the late 1990s, the share of agricultural workers who migrate within the United States fell by about 60%. On average over this period, one-third of the drop in the migration rate was due to changes in the demographic makeup of the workforce, while two-thirds was due to government and institutional changes in the market. However, in recent years, demographic change were responsible for nearly half of the overall change.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: A central component of the social safety net

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or SNAP, formerly known as “food stamps”) is the second largest anti-poverty program for children in the United States and plays a critical role in reducing food insecurity. This brief presents the most recent data available regarding SNAP’s impacts on food insecurity and poverty. I also discuss new research regarding SNAP’s long term effects on families’ well-being. Assessing the long-run causal impact of SNAP is now possible using variation across counties and over birth cohorts in the timing of the introduction of the program, beginning in 1964. The results are striking. SNAP impacts health, education and self-sufficiency, and the benefits of childhood exposure persist through adulthood. Finally, SNAP has desirable macro-economic characteristics as an automatic stabilize, and played a major role during the Great Recession. I argue that SNAP is central to the United States’ broader social safety net.

The New California Earned Income Tax Credit

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In June 2015, California became the 26th state to pass its own Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The new credit, worth as much as $2,653 per year for families with low earned income, supplements the federal EITC. Families will start receiving the credit in 2016 on income they earned in 2015, and approximately 2 million residents are expected to benefit. The average qualifying household is expected to receive $460 per year, for a total cost to California of $380 million for tax year 2015.

The Earned Income Tax Credit: a key policy to support families facing wage stagnation