As we approach this Labor Day, the Pennsylvania economy is growing steadily. Working families are sharing in prosperity in a more sustained way than at any point since 1980--although many families still struggle to make ends meet and, in our polarized nation, a big partisan divide exists in perceptions of whether the economy is better than four…

The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented economic and policy challenges to the United States and other countries. Navigating out of the pandemic slowdown is another novel experience, which makes it more difficult to answer the question addressed each year in the "State of Working Pennsylvania": How is the Pennsylvania economy…

Tom Wilson, the chair of the executive committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce published an op-ed titled "Save Capitalism by Paying People More." Wilson acknowledges in blunt terms that ordinary working Americans are not flourishing economically. This year's annual "The State of Working Pennsylvania" documents the accuracy of…

The United States and Pennsylvania economies are at a pivot point: Will we build forward better or will we build back the same? Will we make things even worse? This report revisits the policy choices that lie ahead. Most of this annual checkup on the Pennsylvania economy, the 26th "State of Working Pennsylvania," presents labor market…

Despite three decades of scholarship on economic restructuring in the United States, employers' violations of minimum wage, overtime and other workplace laws remain understudied. This article begins to fill the gap by presenting evidence from a large-scale, original worker survey that draws on recent advances in sampling methodology to reach…

This Congressional report contains the testimony given at a hearing pertaining to passage of the Youth Employment Opportunity Wage Act of 1985. (The act, which would terminate in September 1987, would authorize an employer to pay a subminimum, "youth employment opportunity wage" to a person under 20 years of age.) Included among those…

(1) Estimates of the "typical" industrial distribution of fluctuations in total U.S. Employment about long run trends are provided with evidence of secular drift that results in employment becoming less sensitive to changes in G.N.P. (2) A Model is presented to analyze the effects of minimum wage legislation with uneven industrial coverage on the…

Federal policy toward youth is divided between those encouraging employment and child labor laws which govern employment of those from 14-17. This study deals with quantification of the impacts of child labor laws by using Census data to identify shifting employment toward occupations not covered by these laws. (Author/JOW)

A study of female-male employment and earnings patterns in the Australian manufacturing sector (1911-36) and specifically the clothing and textile sector found that females were heavily discriminated against in areas dominated by males (such as leather goods). (JOW)

Low-paid workers are defined as the lowest paid one-fourth of nonsupervisory employees in private industry in the nonfarm economy, mostly in service and retail industries, not covered by union or other labor standards, and concentrated in the South. (MF)

Canadian panel data 1988-90 were used to compare estimates of minimum-wage effects based on a low-wage/high-worker sample and a low-wage-only sample. Minimum-wage effect for the latter is nearly zero. Different results for low-wage subgroups suggest a significant effect for those with longer low-wage histories. (Contains 26 references.) (SK)

The results of various attempts to quantify how much changes in the labor force, unemployment insurance, and minimum wages have affected unemployment rates are reasonably close; but no total effect on jobless rates can be determined. (BM)

The article reviews recent research examining the impact of minimum wage requirements on the size and distribution of teenage employment and earnings. The studies measure income distribution, employment levels and effect on unemployment. (MW)

Examines the restructuring of urban employment regimes through the lens of low-wage, temporary employment and its attendant social division of labor at the urban scale. Focuses on the ways in which a "regime of precarious employment" has been embedded within a regional growth model and describes emerging forms of labor market regulation associated…

Includes "Introduction" (Ehrenberg); "Effect of the Minimum Wage [MW] on the Fast-Food Industry" (Katz, Krueger); "Using Regional Variation in Wages to Measure Effects of the Federal MW" (Card); "Do MWs Reduce Employment?" (Card); "Employment Effects of Minimum and Subminimum Wages" (Neumark,…