The US Labor Market: Questions and Challenges for Public Policy
Published By: AEI Press
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Public policy is rightly concerned with fostering a vibrant labor market in which individuals can earn their own success, realize their potential, and enjoy the dignity that hard work provides.
But public policy faces serious challenges in today’s labor market: low workforce participation and high unemployment among many Americans, technological innovation, globalization, persistent poverty, education and training, and public policy’s unintended consequences are just a few.
Which characteristics of today’s labor market demand attention? Which are simply realities to be accepted? And how should policy respond?
Asking the right questions is a good place to start, and this volume asks some of the most important: Should we be concerned about economic mobility and inequality? What is the relationship between productivity and compensation, immigrants and native workers, public policy and labor supply, and corporate taxes and employment? How can we make work pay, and build workers’ skills? What can be done for workers who are difficult to employ?
A competitive market in ideas is the best mechanism to understand the world, and to find the best solutions to problems. This volume makes manifest that proposition, answering each of the questions outlined above—twice, with two papers authored by economists. Each paper offers a different point of view and a different emphasis.
This volume will inform policy for many years to come, helping to move policy in a direction that will better allow all of us to contribute, and to lead lives of fulfillment through work.
Contents
I. Should We Be Concerned About the State of Economic Mobility in the US?
How Much Social Mobility? More, but Not Without Other Things
Miles Corak
What Should Be Done to Increase Intergenerational Mobility in the US?
Bhash Mazumder
II. Is Productivity the Most Important Determinant of Compensation?
Marginally True: The Connection of Pay to Productivity
Dean Baker
Does Productivity Still Determine Worker Compensation? Domestic and International Evidence
Robert Z. Lawrence
III. How Can We Build Workers’ Skills?
Is “Skill” a Topic for Policy?
Peter Cappelli
Worker Skills and the US Labor Market: What Role Should Policy Play?
Harry J. Holzer
IV. How Can We Make Work Pay?
Supporting Work, Inclusion, and Mass Prosperity
Glenn Hubbard
What Do We Really Know About the Employment Effects of the Minimum Wage?
Justin Wolfers
V. Do Public Policies That Reduce the Reward to Work Significantly Diminish Labor Supply?
The US Safety Net and Work Incentives: Is There a Problem? What Should Be Done?
Robert A. Moffitt
The Rise of Employment Taxation
Casey B. Mulligan
VI. What Are the Economic Effects of Lesser-Skilled Immigration on Lesser-Skilled Native Workers?
Low-Skill Immigration
George J. Borjas
Less-Skilled Immigration: Economic Effects and Policy Responses
Pia M. Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny
VII. Would Cutting the Corporate Tax Rate Significantly Increase Jobs in the US?
Would Reducing the US Corporate Tax Rate Increase Employment in the United States?
Martin Feldstein
Business Tax Reform and the Labor Market
Jason Furman and Betsey Stevenson
VIII. What Should We Do About Those Americans Who Are Especially Difficult to Employ?
Making Work a Priority for Working-Age People with Disabilities
Richard V. Burkhauser and Mary C. Daly
How to Help the Hard to Employ: A Focus on Young Men, Especially the Ex-Incarcerated
Timothy M. Smeeding
IX. Should We Be Concerned About Income Inequality?
Is the Concept of Inequality the Best Way of Thinking About Our Economic Problems?
Tyler Cowen
Should We Be Concerned About Income Inequality in the United States?
Melissa S. Kearney
Michael R. Strain is director of economic policy studies and a resident scholar at AEI.
To request a copy of the book, please contact [email protected].
