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10 posts on "Human Capital"
October 16, 2023

Racial Discrimination in Child Protective Services

Illustration: dark purple background with illustration of two hands holding up two children of different races. Disparities: Is race a factor in foster care placement?

Childhood experiences have an enormous impact on children’s long-term societal contributions. Experiencing childhood maltreatment is associated with compromised physical and mental health, decreased educational attainment and future earnings, and increased criminal activity. Child protective services is the government’s way of endeavoring to protect children. Foster care consequently has large potential effects on a child’s future education, earnings, and criminal activity. In this post, we draw on a recent study to document disparities in the likelihood that children of different races will be placed into foster care.

Posted at 7:00 am in Human Capital, Inequality | Permalink
January 18, 2023

Young, Less Educated Faced Higher Inflation in 2021—But Gaps Now Closed

Illustration: Inflation: what's changed? short arrow with college grad at the top; higher arrow with a non grad at the top.

We continue our series on inflation disparities by looking at disparities in inflation rates by educational attainment and age for the period June 2019 to the present. Remarkably, we find that disparities by age and education are considerably larger than those by income and are similar in size to those by race and ethnicity, both explored in our previous post. Specifically, during the inflationary period of 2021-22, younger people and people without a college degree faced the highest inflation, with steadily widening gaps relative to the overall average between early 2021 and June 2022, followed by a rapid narrowing of the gaps and a reversal of some of them by December 2022. This pattern arises primarily from a greater share of the expenditures of younger people and people without a college degree being devoted to transportation—particularly used cars and motor fuel—which led the 2021 inflationary episode but has since converged to general inflation.

September 28, 2018

Just Released: Are Employer‑to‑Employer Transitions Yielding Wage Growth? It Depends on the Worker’s Level of Education

The rate of employer-to-employer transitions and the average wage of full-time offers rose compared with a year ago, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s July 2018 SCE Labor Market Survey. Workers’ satisfaction with their promotion opportunities improved since July 2017, while their satisfaction with wage compensation retreated slightly. Regarding expectations, the average expected wage offer (conditional on receiving one) and the reservation wage—the lowest wage at which respondents would be willing to accept a new job—both increased. The expected likelihood of moving into unemployment over the next four months showed a small uptick, which was most pronounced for female respondents.

June 27, 2018

Why New York City Subway Delays Don’t Affect All Riders Equally

The state of the New York City subway system has worsened considerably over the past few years. As a consequence of rising ridership and decaying infrastructure, the network is plagued by delays and frequently fails to deliver New Yorkers to their destinations on time. While these delays are a headache for anyone who depends on the subway to get around, they do not affect all riders in the same way. In this post, we explain why subway delays disproportionately affect low-income New Yorkers. We show that wealthier commuters who rely on the subway are less likely to experience extensive issues on their commutes.

August 11, 2016

Human Capital and Education in Puerto Rico

An important element of human capital is educational attainment. A series of recent papers highlights the importance of the quality of education—which determines the skills actually learned, rather than the number of years spent in a classroom—as a main driver of growth.

August 9, 2016

Migration in Puerto Rico: Is There a Brain Drain?

Given Puerto Rico’s long-term economic malaise and ongoing fiscal crisis, it is no wonder that out-migration of the Island’s residents has picked up.

September 4, 2014

College May Not Pay Off for Everyone

In our recent Current Issues article and blog posts on the value of a college degree, we showed that the economic benefits of a bachelor’s degree still far outweigh the costs.

September 3, 2014

Staying in College Longer Than Four Years Costs More Than You Might Think

In yesterday’s blog post and in our recent article in the New York Fed’s Current Issues series, we showed that the economic benefits of a bachelor’s degree still outweigh the costs, on average, even in today’s difficult labor market.

September 2, 2014

The Value of a College Degree

Not so long ago, people rarely questioned the value of a college degree. A bachelor’s degree was seen as a surefire ticket to a career-oriented, good-paying job.

February 13, 2012

How Colleges and Universities Can Help Their Local Economies

Policymakers are increasingly viewing colleges and universities as important engines of growth for their local areas.

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