Increasing Workforce Participation Research Articles

The Minimum Wage, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Optimal Subsidy Policy

The minimum wage is equivalent to a non-means-tested low-wage subsidy, financed by a on low-wage employers. This paper, building on insights from both labor economics and tax-transfer policy, assesses the main reasons for adopting such a subsidy, and shows that the financing method largely defeats the presumed goals. The assessment includes a review of Card and Krueger's recent work on the minimum wage, which is shown to be empirically weak and theoretically implausible despite various complexities in labor markets. Consideration of a more appropriate low-wage subsidy requires looking comprehensively at U.S. tax-transfer policy. Due to phaseouts of various social welfare benefits, the United States has long imposed confiscatory marginal rates on many poor households, sometimes exceeding 100 percent. Phaseouts are generally a flawed way to target benefits, since they result in anomalously high bubble rates during the phaseout range. A better approach would seek a plausible overall rate structure (defined in Mirrleasean optimal terms) based on at least conceptual tax-transfer integration, as in the income tax that was widely discussed in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. Such a system would likely involve a demogrant that was gradually phased out and then converted into a positive net liability as income increased. Marginal rates on people's wages would be low or even negative (under certain assumptions about positive externalities from increased workforce participation by the poor) at low income levels, and they likely would not bounce repeatedly up and down.

The Changing Face of Anemia in Infancy

Introduction The pattern of anemia in infancy is changing in North America. The major factors contributing to anemia include iron endowment at birth, adequacy of dietary iron, frequency of infection, and the genetic background of a child. The characteristics of all of these factors are changing in the pediatric population. As more premature infants survive, their inadequate birth endowment of iron results in iron deficiency at an earlier age. Because of widespread use of iron-fortified formulas or iron supplementation with breastfeeding, iron deficiency now causes less anemia in the first year of life. As iron nutrition of infants has improved, anemia associated with infection has been identified more frequently. Increased work force participation of mothers has resulted in more exposure to infections by infants in child care. An increase in the percentage of children who are of Asian and African genetic backgrounds has increased the prevalence of inherited hemoglobin disorders among children. Newborn screening for hemoglobinopathies has resulted in more frequent identification of these disorders. Decline in the socioeconomic status of children in the United States adds to the complexity of this picture. More than one factor often produces anemia in an infant from a poor family, and the anemia may have a greater impact on the psychosocial development of a child from a low-income background.

The Changing Face of Anemia in Infancy

Introduction The pattern of anemia in infancy is changing in North America. The major factors contributing to anemia include iron endowment at birth, adequacy of dietary iron, frequency of infection, and the genetic background of a child. The characteristics of all of these factors are changing in the pediatric population. As more premature infants survive, their inadequate birth endowment of iron results in iron deficiency at an earlier age. Because of widespread use of iron-fortified formulas or iron supplementation with breastfeeding, iron deficiency now causes less anemia in the first year of life. As iron nutrition of infants has improved, anemia associated with infection has been identified more frequently. Increased work force participation of mothers has resulted in more exposure to infections by infants in child care. An increase in the percentage of children who are of Asian and African genetic backgrounds has increased the prevalence of inherited hemoglobin disorders among children. Newborn screening for hemoglobinopathies has resulted in more frequent identification of these disorders. Decline in the socioeconomic status of children in the United States adds to the complexity of this picture. More than one factor often produces anemia in an infant from a poor family, and the anemia may have a greater impact on the psychosocial development of a child from a low-income background.