- “Date” refers to exact date (e.g., August 3, 2017). Standard errors are shown in parentheses.
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- 1. Arkansas, 4/2011: Arkansas Senate Bill 593 reduced AR’s PBD to 25 weeks. (See 2011 report #5.) 2. Missouri, 5/2011: Missouri House Bill 163 reduced MO’s PBD to 20 weeks (Johnston and Mas, 2018).
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- 2. Maryland, 4/12/2009, EUC: Number of weeks available through the EUC program increases from 20 to 33. This change resulted from MD’s TUR crossing the threshold value of 6%. (During this time period the second tier of EUC benefits provided an additional 13 weeks to states with TUR ≥ 6% (Isaacs and Whittaker, 2014).) 3. Virginia, 5/3/2009, EB: Number of weeks available through the EB program increases from 0 to 13. This change resulted directly from VA adopting the TUR option. The TUR in VA exceeded the 13 week trigger value under the TUR option, but was below the IUR trigger value and the 20 week TUR trigger value.
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- 4. Virginia, 5/3/2009, EUC: Number of weeks available through the EUC program increases from 20 to 33. This change resulted from VA’s TUR crossing the threshold value of 6%. (During this time period the second tier of EUC benefits provided an additional 13 weeks to states with TUR ≥ 6% (Isaacs and Whittaker, 2014).
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- 5. Washington D.C., 11/8/2009, EUC: Number of weeks available through the EUC program increases from 33 to 53. This change resulted from a policy change at the federal level which restructured the EUC program, increasing the number of weeks available through the EUC’s second tier to 14 54 See the Office of Unemployment Insurance website, Online, accessed 14 Sep. 2018.
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- 6. Maryland, 11/8/2009, EUC: Number of weeks available through the EUC program increases from 33 to 47. This change resulted from a policy change at the federal level which restructured the EUC program, increasing the number of weeks available through the EUC’s second tier to 14 (from 13), and creating third (13 weeks), and fourth (6 weeks) tiers. The TUR in MD exceeded the threshold value for the third tier but not the fourth (Isaacs and Whittaker, 2014).
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- 7. Virginia, 11/8/2009, EUC: Number of weeks available through the EUC program increases from 33 to 47. This change resulted from a policy change at the federal level which restructured the EUC program, increasing the number of weeks available through the EUC’s second tier to 14 (from 13), and creating third (13 weeks), and fourth (6 weeks) tiers. The TUR in VA exceeded the threshold value for the third tier but not the fourth (Isaacs and Whittaker, 2014).
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- Age (in years) 40.352 12.395 Female 0.462 0.499 Race: - White 0.834 0.372 - Asian 0.029 0.169 - Black 0.115 0.319 Born in the US 0.918 0.275 Works in private sector 0.831 0.375 Occupation sector: - Management occupations 0.111 0.314 - Sales and related occupations 0.101 0.301 - Office and administrative support 0.151 0.358 Works part time 0.121 0.326 Usual number of weekly hours 41.732 9.173 Weekly earnings (in $) 900.487 1694.676 Paid hourly (not salary) 0.454 1.635 Number of minutes at the workplace: - Not working (shirking) 31.833 37.55 - Working 478.613 139.776 Notes: American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data initially collected at the respondent-activity level from the years 2003 to 2014, then collapsed to the respondent level. Observation weights provided by ATUS.
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- Changes to State Regular PBD During ATUS Sample Between 4/2011 and 8/2014 the states of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, and South Carolina each passed legislation reducing their regular PBDs below 26 weeks (Isaacs, 2019). This variation is not relevant for our scanner data sample but is utilized in our ATUS analyses. Here we provide additional detail on each of these policy changes, listed in order of the month that the relevant PBD change is first recorded in our data. Unless otherwise noted sources are the Department of Labor’s Reports on State UI Legislation.55.
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- Figure 2: Trends in UI potential benefit duration (PBD) for ATUS sample (a) Mean and standard deviation of PBD across states by month 0 5 10 15 Standard deviation of PBD 20 40 60 80 100 UI PBD (in weeks) 2000m1 2005m1 2010m1 2015m1 Month Mean Standard deviation (b) Min and max of PBD across states by month 20 40 60 80 100 UI PBD (in weeks) 2000m1 2005m1 2010m1 2015m1 Month Min Max Source: Data were obtained from a replication file for Farber, Rothstein and Valletta (2015).
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- Figure 3: Searches on Google via Google Trends (a) Searches for “Unemployment benefits” Week after EUC enacted First EUC change Second EUC change 20 40 60 80 100 Search frequency on Google Trends 01jan2008 30jun2008 21nov2008 06nov2009 date (b) Searches for “Emergency Unemployment Compensation” Week after EUC enacted First EUC change Second EUC change 0 20 40 60 80 100 Search frequency on Google Trends 01jan2008 30jun2008 21nov2008 06nov2009 date Notes: Google Trends data retrieved from Google Inc. Search frequency, indexed to a 0 to 100 scale, shows how often a particular search-item on Google Search (i.e. “Unemployment benefits ” and “Emergency Unemployment Compensation”) is entered relative to the total searchvolume for the search-item across the queried time period (January 2008 - December 2009) within the United States. An index of 100 reveals the week(s) with the highest search frequency of that item within the queried time period.
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- However, on four separate occasions during our sample (in March, April, June, and November of 2010) Congress failed to extend the program before its previous expiration date so that there were temporary lapses in EUC availability. The first two of these lapses were short (2 and 10 days respectively) while the latter two were relatively long (nearly 2 months).
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- Table 2: Potential benefit duration (PBD) changes during sample period Washington D.C. Maryland Virginia EB EUC Total EB EUC Total EB EUC Total 12/1/2008 0 33 59 0 20 46 0 20 46 4/5/2009 0 33 59 0 20 46 0 20 46 4/12/2009 20 33 79 0 33 59 0 20 46 5/3/2009 20 33 79 0 33 59 13 33 72 11/8/2009 20 53 99 0 47 73 13 47 86 4/5/2010 20 0 46 0 0 26 13 0 39 4/15/2010 20 53 99 0 47 73 13 47 86 6/2/2010 20 0 46 0 0 26 13 0 39 7/22/2010 20 53 99 0 47 73 13 47 86 11/30/2010 20 0 46 0 0 26 13 0 39 12/17/2010 20 53 99 0 47 73 13 47 86 Notes: EB = extended benefits. EUC = emergency unemployment compensation. Numbers represent maximum duration (in weeks) of UI benefits available during the time period beginning on the date in the first column. Total weeks are calculated as the sum of any EB extensions, EUC extensions, and the standard pre-extension PBD for all states (26 weeks).
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- These estimates are likely to be conservative since a cashier’s first day in the Mas and Moretti (2009) sample is likely not their first day at the retailer, a cashier may have relevant earnings from other employers, and a cashier may earn more than the minimum wage.
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- UI eligibility rules vary by state and are based on earnings histories in the location of employment, not residence. The UI eligibility rules in our sample are as follows (Source: Department of Labor, Online, accessed 14 Sep. 2018): In Maryland, $900 in wages in the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters, with ≥$576 in the highest earning of those quarters, and >$0 in wages in two of those quarters; In Virginia, $2,700 in wages in either the first four or the last four of the last five completed calendar quarters, with ≥$2,700 in wages during the highest two earning of those quarters; In Washington D.C., $1,950 in wages in either the first four or the last four of the last five completed calendar quarters, and either ≥$1,300 in the highest earning of those quarters or ≥$1,950 in the two highest earning of those quarters.
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Valletta, Robert G. 2014. “Recent Extensions of US Unemployment Benefits: Search Responses in Alternative Labor Market States.” IZA Journal of Labor Policy, 3(1): 18.
- We do not model the optimal e∗ from the employer’s or social planner’s perspective. Therefore, we do not explicitly define shirking and we use the terms “a decrease in effort” and “an increase in shirking” interchangeably. A general equilibrium approach would model the employer’s choice of wage offers and it is worth considering whether or not such employer responses affect the partial equilibrium relationships that we estimate. It is at least possible for both employers and customers to foresee changes in worker effort provision in response to UI benefit changes. In section 5, we investigate these possibilities by looking for changes in cashier characteristics and transaction characteristics in response to PBD changes. Concerns about employer responses are also partially reduced by observations in past work with data from this supermarket chain which suggest that workers are primarily responsible for choosing their own shifts (Mas and Moretti, 2009).
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- Whittaker, Julie M, and Katelin P Isaacs. 2013. “Extending Unemployment Compensation Benefits During Recessions.” Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress RL34340.
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