Policy Levers to Increase Jobs and Increase Income from Work after the Great Recession

David Neumark

No 9529, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The depth of the Great Recession, the slow recovery of job creation, the downward trend in labor force participation, high long-term unemployment, stagnant or declining wages for low-to-medium skill jobs owing to adverse labor demand shifts, and a greater rebound in low-wage than mid- or higher-wage jobs, raised concerns that the normal business cycle dynamics of recovery from the recession will be insufficient to offset the diminished labor market prospects of many workers. These concerns have spurred serious consideration of policies to encourage job creation and higher income from work beyond the more immediate countercyclical policies that were adopted in response to Great Recession. Among the policies generating continuing or renewed interest are hiring credits, higher (sometimes much higher) minimum wages, and a more substantial Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for childless individuals. This paper discusses these policy options, what we know about their likely effects and tradeoffs, and what the unanswered questions are; the focus is on U.S. evidence.

Keywords: minimum wage; jobs; income; hiring credits (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J2 J3 J6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 52 pages
Date: 2015-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: IZA Journal of Labor Policy, 2015, 5, 6 (2016)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp9529.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Policy levers to increase jobs and increase income from work after the Great Recession (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9529

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().