From Pink Slips to Polling Stations: The Electoral Consequences of Mass-Layoff Announcements

Victor Hernandez Martinez () and Pawel Krolikowski

No 26-21, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Abstract: We study how mass-layoff announcements affect electoral outcomes using a newly assembled dataset of US establishment-level administrative notices from the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. A matched event study compares same-state counties with and without sizable WARN-announced layoffs. Controlling for local labor-market conditions, layoff announcements increase the Democratic-Republican vote margin by reducing Republican votes and increasing Democratic votes without clearly altering election winners or incumbent support. Effects appear across political offices, are not driven by manufacturing decline, and are geographically localized. The responses operate through turnout composition rather than vote switching and result in no policy-induced changes in transfer payments.

JEL-codes: D72 J63 J65 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-08-31
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedcwq:103764

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DOI: 10.26509/frbc-wp-202621

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