Interactive Metro Map: Baby Boomers Gaining Jobs, Millennials Standing Pat

From Career Builder News Release:

The jobs recovery has put spotlights on two large sections of the labor force: workers nearing the end of their careers and young adults just beginning them. While the economy has been difficult for both groups, baby boomers now hold a larger percentage of jobs in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and other occupations than before the recession, while millennials have generally struggled to make headway four years into the recovery.

The number of jobs held by baby boomers (age 55-64) grew 9 percent from 2007 to 2013, a gain of 1.9 million. The millennial workforce (age 22-34), however, has not recovered from the recession nearly as fast. With an increase of only 110,000 jobs, employment in 2013 was essentially unchanged from 2007 (.3 percent growth).

This analysis – from CareerBuilder and Economic Modeling Specialists Intl. (EMSI) – explores the very different stories of millennials and baby boomers post-recession. EMSI’s extensive labor market database pulls from over 90 national and state employment resources and includes detailed information on employees and self-employed workers. 

Source: CareerBuilder

Explore interactive map and view more details.

Lower-Income Individuals Without Pensions: Who Misses Out and Why?

Abstract:

In 2010, only 19 percent of individuals ages 50-58 whose household incomes were less than 300 percent of the poverty line participated in a pension of any kind at their current jobs, compared to 56 percent of those above 300 percent of poverty. This paper investigates this pension gap. In particular, we decompose the pension participation rate into its four elements in order to compare coverage between higher- and lower-income individuals: 1) the fraction of people who are currently working (the employment rate); 2) the fraction of workers who are in firms that offer pension benefits to at least some workers (the offer rate); 3) the fraction of workers who are eligible for pension benefits, conditional on being in a firm where it is offered (the eligibility rate); and 4) the fraction of workers who enroll in a pension plan when they are eligible (the take-up rate). We find that the substantial pension gap between higher- and lower-income individuals is driven primarily by the lower-income group’s lower employment rate and the smaller probability of working for an employer that offers pensions; when lower-income workers do have a pension plan at work, their eligibility and take-up rates are nearly equivalent to higher-income workers. We also find that the factors associated with a higher value for each element of pension participation are very consistent: higher education and income, previous pension history, and job characteristics including firm size, occupation, job tenure, and union status. Together, these findings suggest that policies such as automatic enrollment that focus on pension eligibility or take-up are unlikely to close the pension coverage gap between older, lower-income individuals and their higher-income contemporaries; instead, greater pension participation requires more jobs and, in particular, more “good jobs.”

Source: Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

Download full pdf publication of Lower-Income Individuals Without Pensions: Who Misses Out and Why?

Read abstract online at Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

The Long-Term Unemployed in the Wake of the Great Recession

Abstract:

Using the Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey, this brief outlines the demographic and economic characteristics of the long-term unemployed and compares them with their short-term unemployed counterparts. It also describes changes in the composition of the long-term unemployed since the start of the Great Recession. Author Andrew Schaefer reports that the percentage of unemployed workers who were seeking employment for more than six months more than doubled between 2007 and 2013 from 18.4 percent to 39.3 percent and that the long-term unemployed are more likely than the short-term unemployed to live in urban areas. In addition, the urban long-term unemployed are more likely to be older, but less likely to be poor than their rural counterparts. He concludes that, as debate about the extension of Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits continues, it is important to gain an understanding of the long-term unemployed in terms of their demographic and economic characteristics and how those characteristics differ across place in order to help better target strategies for alleviating the negative effects of long-term unemployment.

Source: Carsey Institute, University of New Hampshire

Download full pdf report of The Long-Term Unemployed in the Wake of the Great Recession