Politicians, journalists, and the public have expressed rising concern about the decline - or percieved decline - in middle-class jobs. The U.S. work force is viewed as increasingly divided between a prosperous minority that enjoys ever-rising wages and a less affluent majority that struggles harder each year to make ends meet. To determine whether and why this view of the job market is accurate, labor market economists anaylze trends in the distribution of jobs and wages over the past two decades and attempt to forecast the future course of American earnings inequality. McKinley L. Blackburn, David E. Bloom, and Richard B. Freeman assess the reasons behind the deterioration of earnings and job opportunities among less skilled men. They consider the impact of changes in industrial structure, declines in unionization, and trends in the level and quality of schooling for men who have limited skills and education. Gary Burtless examines the effect of the business cycle, within and across different regions of the United States, on earnings inequality and analyzes the effects of demographic change on inequality over the past twenty years. Rebecca M. Blank studies the rise of part-time employment and its impact on wages, fringe benefits, and the quality of jobs. Linda Dachter Loury focuses on the effect of the baby boom and baby bust on demand for schooling among new labor market entrants. If young entrants are discouraged from seeking college training by the high cost or low payoff of schooling, the long-term impact will be a gradual decline in the skills of the U.S. work force. Robert Mofitt analyzes the effect of welfare state programs on the growth of low-wage jobs, and the extent towhich the welfare reforms of the eighties have affected low-income workers.

Examines the effects of rising social security costs and of measures adopted to deal with them, and discusses possible ways of coping with the shortfall of available money for the aging American population.

As the average age of the population continues to rise in industrialized nations, the fiscal impacts of aging demand ever-closer attention. Closing the Deficit examines one oft-discussed approach to the issue - encouraging people to work longer than they now do. Workers would spend more years paying taxes and fewer years drawing pension and health benefits. But how much difference to spending and revenues would longer working lives make? What steps could be taken to make longer working lives attractive? And what would happen to older Americans not in a position to prolong their work lives? Leading scholars examine these issues in Closing the Deficit , edited by Brookings economists Gary Burtless and Henry Aaron.

Many believe that American education can only be improved with a sizable infusion of new resources into the nation's schools. Others find little evidence that large increases in spending lead to improvements in educational performance. Do additional school resources actually make any difference? The evidence on this question offers a striking paradox. Many analysts have found that extra school resources play a negligible role in improving student achievement while children are in school. Yet many economists have gathered data showing that students who attend well-endowed schools grow up to enjoy better job market success than children whose education takes place in schools where resources are limited. For example, children who attend schools with a lower pupil-teacher ratio and a better educated teaching staff appear to earn higher wages as adults than children who attend poorer schools. This book, which grew out of a Brookings conference, brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines to discuss the evidence on the link between school resources and educational and economic outcomes. In a lively exchange of views, they debate whether additional spending can improve the performance of the nation's schools. In addition to editor Gary Burtless, the contributors include Eric Hanushek, University of Rochester; James Heckman, University of Chicago; Julian Betts, University of California, San Diego; Richard Murnane, Harvard University; Larry Hedges, University of Chicago; and Christopher Jencks, Northwestern University. Dialogues on Public Policy

For nearly two decades the U.S. economy has been plagued by two disturbing economic trends: the slowdown in the growth rates of productivity and average real wages and the increase in wage and income inequality. The federal budget is in chronic deficit. Imports have far exceeded exports for more than a decade. American competitiveness has been a source of concern for even longer. Many Americans worry that foreigners are buying up U.S. companies, that the economy is losing its manufacturing base, and that the gap between rich and poor is widening. In this book three of the nation's most noted economists look at the primary reasons for these trends and assess which of the many suggestions for change in policy whether for increased tax incentives for investment, education reform, or accelerated research and development are likely to work and which may not work and could even hinder economic development. The author's discuss a variety of issues connected with deindustrialization and diminished competitiveness, distinguishing between problems that would be of real concern and those that should not. They evaluate explanations for slow growth in aggregate productivity in the United States and its relation to slower growth in other industrialized countries. They discuss the performance of the various sectors of the U.S. economy and systematically examine the evidence for and against the major proposals for correcting the adverse trends in productivity and inequity. Growth With Equity clearly explains how the country can accomplish the challenge of accelerating growth and narrowing the gap that separates the rich from the poor. While recognizing that some of their recommendations may be politically painful, the authors stress the importance of adopting a purposeful, long-range policy to encourage growth, ensure equity, and reduce the government's equity.

Contents include: Introduction and Summary Public Policy Implications of Declining Old-Age Mortality Aging the Ability to Work: Policy Issues and Recent Trends Occupational Effects on the Health and Work Capacity of Older Men Involuntary Early Retirement and Consumption Life-Cycle Labor Supply and Social Security: A Time-Series Analysis Life Insurance of the Elderly: Its Adequacy and Determinant

By 2030, when most American baby boomers will have retired, all the large industrial economies will see a massive increase in the old age population. This book examines population aging and its implications for public retirement programs in the five largest industrial economies--Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States. The authors report on national demographic trends, examine the current living conditions of the aged population, explain the structure of the retirement system, and offer estimates of future budgetary costs of the public programs. They also discuss national debates over the potential reform of public retirement systems.

While all five countries share the prospect of an older population, variations in the size and timing of demographic change, as well as important differences in the structure of public programs for the elderly, suggest that population aging will have widely different implications in each country. In Germany and Japan, for example, the population will not only grow older but may actually decline because of low birth rates. The United States will experience less aging, but its debate over reform treats seriously the possibility of privatizing public retirement commitments.

With welfare reforms tested in almost every state and plans for a comprehensive federal overall on the horizon, it is increasingly important for Americans to understand how policy changes are likely to affect the lives of welfare recipients. Five Years After tells the story of what happened to the welfare recipients who participated in the influential welfare-to-work experiments conducted by several states in the mid-1980s.The authors review the distinctive goals and procedures of evaluations performed in Arkansas, Baltimore, San Diego, and Virginia, and then examine five years of follow-up data to determine whether the initial positive impact on employment, earnings, and welfare costs held up over time. The results were surprisingly consistent. Low-cost programs that saved money by getting individuals into jobs quickly did little to reduce poverty in the long run. Only higher-cost educational programs enabled welfare recipients to hold down jobs successfully and stay off welfare. Five Years After ends speculation about the viability of the first generation of employment programs for welfare recipients, delineates the hard choices that must be made among competing approaches, and provides a well-documented foundation for building more comprehensive programs for the next generation. A sobering tale for welfare reformers of all political persuasions, this book poses a serious challenge to anyone who promises to end welfare dependency by cutting welfare budgets.