Research

Institute research focuses on labor markets by addressing several core areas: the causes of unemployment and the effectiveness of social safety net programs in mitigating its effects; education and training systems to improve workers’ employability and earnings; and the influence of state and local economic development policies on local labor markets. The Institute also assesses emerging trends affecting workers and labor markets in its core research areas.

Topics

Resources

Job Quality & Economic Security

Our research explores not just the number of jobs, but also the quality of those jobs and how well they support stable households and communities.

Social Insurance & Safety Net

Examinations of social safety net programs are central to the Upjohn Institute’s mission to address causes and solutions to unemployment. Our research assesses effectiveness of current social insurance programs and explores other strategies to keep people in stable jobs and minimize the effect of economic downturns.

Education & Workforce Development

Building and maintaining skills for the labor force is a lifelong process, starting with prekindergarten programs and continuing throughout a worker’s career. The Upjohn Institute’s research elucidates how each learning stage and program contributes to a strong workforce.

Economic Development

Upjohn Institute research offers insight into specific industries and the labor market as a whole, from locally to nationally and internationally and from both the supply and demand sides. Focal areas include manufacturing, tax incentives and regional collaboration.

Working Papers
April 2025
Author(s): Brian J. Asquith
Housing wealth is the largest component in most older Americans’ portfolios, and they may seek to recoup losses by working longer to help smooth consumption in retirement. Asquith performs three different analyses to approach this question and finds that all three concur that older homeowners do not significantly change their labor supply or Social Security claiming behavior in response to unexpected housing wealth gains or losses. Subgroup analyses suggest that college-educated workers may be the most responsive, even though housing wealth makes up a lower share of their total wealth, probably due to their comparably greater employment resiliency in weak labor markets.
April 2025
Author(s): Peter Hinrichs
This paper studies families’ capacity to pay for college in the United States, focusing on changes over time and differences by race and socioeconomic status. I use data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) to document changes over time in the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The results suggest that the EFC has been rising over time, and that this has been driven primarily by families in the upper quartile of the income distribution. I then use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to calculate alternative measures of the ability to pay for college. I find that it is possible to alter the distribution of who pays what amount by changing details of the EFC calculation, but the extent of this depends on details of the implementation.
April 2025
Author(s): Parag Mahajan
I study how access to foreign-born workers impacts firms and local economics in times of acute crisis. The 2020 H-2B visa lottery randomly gave some U.S. firms the chance to hire low-wage, migrant workers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using administrative data across three government agencies, I find that access to H-2B workers led to decreased business closures, increased revenues, increased payroll, and increased employment in 2020. I also find suggestive evidence that these effects spilled over to non-participant firms within the same county.
March 2025
Author(s): Sydnee Caldwell, Ingrid Haegele, and Jӧrg Heining
We use novel surveys of firms and workers, linked to administrative employer-employee data, to study the prevalence and importance of individual bargaining in wage determination. We show that simple survey questions accurately elicit firms’ bargaining strategies. Using the elicited strategies for 772 German firms, we document that the majority of firms are willing to engage in individual wage bargaining. Labor market factors predict firms’ strategies better than firm characteristics.