Nathan Wilmers

This paper from @tomlyttelton.bsky.social and @natewilmers.bsky.social is amazing. It shows that removing educational requirements can have big impacts for workers...except that employers don't really hire those workers below the normal education level anyway.

Trump to cut protections for home health aides, migrant farmworkers The Labor Department unveiled an “aggressive deregulatory” effort this week.

Early results suggest Chavez-DeRemer's prior pro-labor stances weren't exactly deeply held.
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

"Cuts to social programs will have a major impact on local economic activity." Social programs are a key part of the regional economic base. @robertmanduca.bsky.social on how Medicaid and SNAP cuts in the #ReconciliationBill will negatively impact local economies:
equitablegrowth.org/medicaid-and...

My 40 year old book, Recapitalizing America was reissued. Here is my reflection today. www.wipsociology.org/2025/07/02/r...

Yes, terrific to have you teaching us and the students! I’ll be stealing the square game :)

Thanks so much for this thoughtful write-up, Tom!!

At the blog I wrote about a new paper by @natewilmers.bsky.social , @zparolin.bsky.social , and @lukaslehner.bsky.social .

We're living in a novel era of inequality discordance. What's going on?!

asocial.substack.com/p/inequality...

I love the quantified comparison to the great compression! And agreed, started before COVID, but seems to be supercharged after 2020

Jobs - The Shift Project Shift is hiring!   Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Opportunity   About the Position Professors Daniel Schneider (Harvard Kennedy School) and David Weil (Brandeis University) are recruiting one full-ti...

David Weil & I are hiring a full-time post-doc to work with us on new strategic enforcement research. Folks interested in computational methods, labor policy, industrial relations, labor economics, etc.. pls apply (+ don't hesitate to get in touch)! Apps due 1/8/24
shift.hks.harvard.edu/about/jobs/

"Is this the end of corporate capitalism?" Probably not the end--but an opening for alternatives.
lpeproject.org/blog/is-this...

"The Economics Profession's Socioeconomic Diversity Problem" w/ Robert Schultz is now out in the JEP Here's the paper:

pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/...

and the Twitter thread from Mar 2022 (aka before I was on Bsky - sorry!)

twitter.com/annastansbur...

New paper in Socio-Economic Review! We examine the relationship between the density of college majors in occupations and occupation-level earnings. This "major specialization" of occupations boosts earnings, over and above closure mechanisms and skills. doi.org/10.1093/ser/...

When it's time to change... we change.

Here's my Substack: www.wildworldofwork.org

I'll publish every couple weeks on this wild world of work we now inhabit: how we're handling intelligent tech and how we could do better.

I couldn't ask for better early readers than you folks: please subscribe!

Great post. I wonder if there have always been field-defining DVs (solidarity, order, modernization, secularization) and inequality is just a particularly successful example. Or has the style of soc changed, such that we’re undersupplied with distinctive theory and overfocused on this one outcome

UAW workers reject Mack Trucks contract, go on strike The union said 73 percent of its workers had voted against a tentative agreement the two parties hashed out a week ago.

Another strike! Strikes happen when 2 sides differ in view of power balance. Unionized employers in America are only slowly realizing workers have more leverage now than in decades past.

A key reason: historically tight labor market over past 5 years.

Just the MOST incredible news! 🎉🎉🎉

Some relevant lit abt workers dealing with imperfectly observed employer heterogeneity:
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/28mbj...

www.nber.org/papers/w29623

www.nber.org/papers/w30266

What else do you know in this area?

For this new site audience: I’m hiring a postdoc! Very flexible in terms of details, but I’m looking for someone I can collaborate with on labor market inequality research. Apps due 11/1.

It is based at MIT, but I’m open to remote work.
apply.interfolio.com/130576

Could be; 80s is big inequality increases across the board, regardless of data used. Late 90s shows faster growth for lower paid workers in CPS-ORG vs the March CPS shown here. Not sure which is right

Yes! And note the very rapid increases for LTHS since Great Recession. College premium has actually been declining recently

A quick reminder that the share of prime working age Americans with a job is at a 22 year high and, with luck, we’ll set a new post-2001 record tomorrow.

Only 1 percentage point from the all time high!

The Americans Most Threatened by Eviction: Young Children About a quarter of Black babies and toddlers in rental households face the threat of eviction in a typical year, a new study says, and all children are disproportionately at risk.

"The Americans most at risk of eviction are babies and toddlers."

I'm so excited to finally see this research in print.

www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/u...

Newish paper with Haowen Zheng (1st author): gender differences in field of study account for about 36% of the segregation of male and female college graduates across occupations.

Implies that 64% is unrelated to field, get-women-in-STEM programs not a panacea.

read.dukeupress.edu/demography/a...

Great new article on long-term inequality effects of RtW: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...