Sammis B. White

ES202: The Data Base for Local Employment Analysis

This article analyzes the costs and benefits of using state-level unemployment compensation (UC) records, commonly known as ES202 data, for analyzing local economic change. Although the unedited UC records are helpful for the most general level for statewide analysis, these records must be edited considerably for more detailed questions and/or any substate analyses. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukees Urban Research Center detail the problems and issues they confronted in using Wisconsins ES202 data to address these latter concerns. Included is a description of the type of data available from ES202 reports and a discussion of the many obstacles that are likely to confront all researchers attempting to transform raw ES202 data into a more useful form. The authors conclude that properly used, ES202 data provide a wide range of valuable information that can be used to inform local economic development policy

Evaluating Schools and Teachers Based On Student Performance Testing an Alternative Methodology

As urban school systems continue to fail large segments of the school-age population, there has been an increasing concern with accountability. A major question has been: Can teachers be held accountable for the academic achievement of students? This article describes an empirical test of a method of evaluating schools and teachers based on the performance of students on standardized achievement tests. The research indicates that teachers can be evaluated using this method of predicting student performance and comparing it with actual outcomes.

Dual Standards among Teachers: This School Is Good Enough for Other Kids but Not My Child.

Some teachers would not send their children to the schools in which they taught because of school quality, school discipline, school desegregation.

The Sources of Suburban Employment Growth

Abstract A critical issue in most metropolitan areas is the suburbanization of employment. Using a newly developed database and a disaggregation of the suburbs into distinct subregions based on their characteristics, this paper goes beyond previous work in examining the degree to which employment in the suburbs has grown by segment of the business cycle, by industry, by location, and by source, either migration, expansion, or new births. This paper concludes that all these distinctions are important for understanding the sources and reasons for employment growth.

Explaining Teacher/Principal Differences in Evaluating Schools

Explores the question of why principals rate their schools more highly than do their own teachers. Following the work of others, showing that disagreements between teachers and principals stem mainly from disagreements on discipline, reports on results which show that views on disciplinary policy are the only factor which is strong enough to overcome the somewhat biased grading by principals. Concludes that, if a principal wants higher teacher morale and higher grading of their school, efforts must be made to develop greater congruence between teacher and principal expectations and actions on discipline.

Reservation Wages and Unemployment in Manufacturing: a Case Study

The distribution and determinants of reservation wages are examined using a large, new data set of unemployed, skilled manufacturing workers. Reservation wage ratios are smaller than previous evidence would suggest while the period of unemployment and eligibility for unemployment compensation play their anticipated roles. In addition two new relationships are demonstrated. First, workers displaced from jobs outside their primary occupation have significantly lower reservation wages than those unemployed from their major occupation. Second, the requirement for a union job is shown to play a surprisingly large and important role in determining reservation wages. Finally, a simultaneous equation system captures the possibility of dual causation between reservation wages and months of unemployment. We find no evidence that higher reservation wages cause longer unemployment.

The Impact of Employer Characteristics and Workforce Commitment on Earnings of Former Welfare Recipients

Former welfare recipients have fared differentially in the 1990s. Some are now earning self-supporting incomes, whereas others remain in poverty despite work efforts. Still others have no recorded work involvement. In this article, the authors attempt to learn why. The vast majority of research studies to date on the employment and earnings outcomes of former welfare recipients have focused exclusively on the characteristics of the women recipients. This study is an exception: It focuses on the characteristics of the employers who chose to hire these former recipients. It asks two questions: One concerns the overall importance of employer characteristics in determining employment and earnings outcomes. The second explores the relative roles of various employer characteristics in determining earnings outcomes. The article also examines the effect on earnings of women’s commitment to work. This is the first comprehensive longitudinal examination of these topics.

Determinants of Parent Attitudes about Schools and the School System

Parents judge the school their child attends by one set of standards, the school system by another.

Which Business Establishments are Really Generating New Employment

In this paper several hypotheses on the characteristics of employers which are contributing to employment growth are explored. Based on the analysis of a new data set for such studies, the Employment Service ES202 Unemployment Compensation data, an attempt is made to analyze empirically the statements of others, most notably Birch, as to the sources of employment growth. Among the issues explored are the contributions to employment growth by size, age, industry, and past employment history of establishments. It is concluded that sources and patterns of employment growth are more complex than past simplistic statements indicate.

Reservation Wages: Your Community may be Competitive after all

Wage rates, while not necessarily a critical factor in terms of overall production costs, are perceived as critical. Firms judge the relative appropriateness of specific locations on the basis of what they know about the wage rates. The usual source is published rates currently earned by employed workers. But these rates may not be a very useful tool. They do not reveal anything about other costs such as turnover, absenteeism, work stoppages, fringe benefits, and the like that influence labor cost per unit of output. Nor do they indicate how much a worker produces to justify that wage rate. Despite these failings, published wage rates are used, and they tend to put many communities at a disadvantage. Yet when unemployed workers are asked, particularly in a surplus labor market, it appears that skilled, experienced workers will work for considerably less than the published wages. What this implies is that communities with surplus labor, such as many northern industrial areas, are likely to be much more competitive with regard to wage rates than is commonly believed. Economic development can occur because of this, and it can be targeted to take advantage of the skills and experience that are available at very competitive wage rates.