Archive for December 2013

More on the Universal Basic Income

An interview I did a few months back with Salon journalist Josh Eidelson on a Swiss proposal to provide all legal residents of the country with a (high) unconditional annual basic income (about $34,000 per year) gave me an opportunity to raise some of my concerns about the universal basic income (UBI) more generally and […]

Parental leave 20 years after FMLA

It has been 20 years since the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), a landmark piece of legislation that guaranteed covered workers the right to take up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave in the event of a birth or adoption or to deal with a serious health problem affecting the worker […]

Eye of the Beholder

Over the last few months, I have repeatedly heard opponents of raising the federal minimum wage argue that “85 percent” of the “most credible studies” find that increasing the minimum wage has a negative effect on employment. The main promulgator of this particular number is Michael Saltsman of the low-wage-employer-sponsored Employment Policies Institute. Earlier in […]

Women and Unions

Earlier this week, CEPR released a short issue brief, prepared by Nicole Woo and me, on the union wage and benefit advantage for women workers. The unionization rate for women (and men) has been falling steadily for decades. But, women are a growing share of the shrinking unionized workforce and are on their way to […]