Richard V Burkhauser
Biographic Data
| ID | 232235 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Richard V Burkhauser |
| GIVEN NAMES | Richard V |
| FAMILY NAME | Burkhauser |
| SIGNATURE | BURKHAUSER R V |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cornell University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4629-0253 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 90 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 196 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 83 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 5 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1978 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Minimum Wages and Poverty
This study re-examines Dube (2019), which finds large and statistically significant poverty-reducing effects of the minimum wage. We show that his estimated elasticities are fragile and sensitive to (1) time period under study, (2) choice of macroeconomic controls, (3) limiting counterfactuals to geographically proximate states (“close controls”), which poorly match treatment states' pre-treatment poverty trends, and (4) accounting for potential …
Policy research institutes’ role in the development of evidence for evidence‐based policymaking in the United States
Policy research institutes in the United States play an important role in the creation of evidence for evidence‐based policymaking. This is the case with respect to their advocacy for the gathering and broad dissemination of “Big Data” and in the publication of policy analysis in the academic literature using these data. But they play a much more significant role, via non‐refereed working papers, in predicting the possible behavioral and distribu…
Evaluating the Success of the War on Poverty since 1963 Using an Absolute Full-Income Poverty Measure
We evaluate progress in the War on Poverty as President Lyndon B. Johnson defined it, which established a 20% baseline poverty rate and adopted an absolute standard. While the official poverty rate fell from 19.5% in 1963 to 10.5% in 2019, our absolute full-income poverty measure—which uses a fuller income measure and updates thresholds only for inflation—fell from 19.5% to 1.6%. However, we also show that relative poverty reductions have been mo…
Policies to Help the Working Class in the Aftermath of Covid-19
The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated government-mandated shutdowns caused a historic shock to the U.S. economy and a disproportionate job loss concentrated among the working class. While an unprecedented social safety net policy response successfully offset earnings losses among lower-wage workers, the risk of continued and persistent unemployment remains higher among the working class. The key lesson from the Great Recession is that strong e…
Budgeting for Social Security
intellectual founders and shapers of its growth
Recent Trends in US Income Distributions in Tax Record Data Using More Comprehensive Measures of Income Including Real Accrued Capital Gains
Use of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax records improves researchers' ability to track income trends, although the focus on taxable market income in this research excludes important income sources. Using IRS data in combination with other data sources, we explore the effect of measuring inequality levels and trends with income, including real accrued capital gains based on Haig-Simons principles. While median market income fell 10% from 1989 to…
The Effects of Union Dissolution on the Economic Resources of Men and Women
We analyze the consequences of union dissolution on the economic resources of men and women in the United States and Germany over three decades, using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and another international survey, the German Socio-Economic Panel, which was modeled after the PSID. Measured either by family size-adjusted "pregovernment" or "postgovernment" incomes (incomes to men and women either before or after taxes and cash transfer…
Top incomes and human well-being
Australia Farewell
When Good Measurement Goes Wrong
Hoffman's (2015) replication of Sabia, Burkhauser, and Hansen (SBH 2012) suggests that "unlucky" measurement error in low-skilled employment in the Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Groups (CPS-ORG) led SBH to produce upwardly biased estimates of the labor demand effects of the 2005 to 2006 New York State minimum wage increase. This study replicates Hoffman's preferred policy estimates from the full CPS and finds evidence that the paral…
Welfare Reform
Valuing Internalities in Regulatory Impact Analysis
How Will Dynamic Scoring Affect the Budget Process
Point/Counterpoint
Does early-life income inequality predict self-reported health in later life? Evidence from the United States
Measuring top incomes using tax record data
Point/Counterpoint
Recent Trends in Top Income Shares in the United States
Although most U.S. income inequality research is based on public use March CPS data, a new wave of research using IRS tax return data reports substantially faster inequality growth for recent years. We show that these apparently inconsistent estimates are largely reconciled when the income distribution and inequality are defined the same way. Using internal CPS data for 1967 to 2006, we show that CPS-based estimates of top income shares are simil…
Capturing the Elusive Working-Age Population With Disabilities
The purpose of this study is to examine the implications of using different approaches to estimating the U.S. working-age population with disabilities. The approaches compared are the traditional work-activity limitation question, the Census Bureau’s newer six-question sequence that does not include a work-activity limitation question, and the combination of the two. With data from the Current Population Survey and the American Community Survey, …
Social Security Disability Insurance
Response to Virginia Reno
Are the Effects of Minimum Wage Increases Always Small? New Evidence from a Case Study of New York State
The authors estimate the effect of the 2004-6 New York State (NYS) minimum wage increase from $5.15 to $6.75 per hour on the employment rates of 16- to 29-year-olds who do not have a high school diploma. Using data drawn from the 2004 and 2006 Current Population Survey, they employ difference-in-difference estimates to show that the NYS minimum wage increase is associated with a 20.2% to 21.8% reduction in the employment of less-skilled, less-edu…
The Importance of Anti-Discrimination and Workers' Compensation Laws on the Provision of Workplace Accommodations following the Onset of a Disability
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) was the first federal disability-based anti-discrimination law that applied to a broad range of workers. Whereas some studies have focused on its impact on workplace accommodation, this is the first to do so while accounting for previous state anti-discrimination and Workers' Compensation laws. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, the authors find that prior to the implementation of th…
Effect of Postsecondary Education on the Economic Status of Persons Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
This article examines the effect that postsecondary education has on earnings and the duration of time spent in the Social Security disability programs for young persons who are deaf or hard of hearing. Our hypothesis is that investments in postsecondary training increase the likelihood of employment for persons who are deaf or hard of hearing and thus reduce dependency on disability-related income support programs. A longitudinal data set based …
Presidential address
Wife or frau, women do worse
Longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the German Socio-Economic Panel show that in the Federal Republic of Germany, women experience even sharper drops in economic status immediately after a marital split than in the United States, while German and American men fare about the same. German social policy does little to reduce the disparities
Does early-life income inequality predict self-reported health in later life? Evidence from the United States
Capturing the Elusive Working-Age Population With Disabilities
The purpose of this study is to examine the implications of using different approaches to estimating the U.S. working-age population with disabilities. The approaches compared are the traditional work-activity limitation question, the Census Bureau’s newer six-question sequence that does not include a work-activity limitation question, and the combination of the two. With data from the Current Population Survey and the American Community Survey, …
The Minimum Wage and the Poor
The belief that minimum-wage legislation helps the working poor is one reason for its continued popular support. The authors track the household incomes of low-wage workers and find that a radical transformation has occurred in the half century since the passage of the original minimum-wage law. Today most low-wage workers live in households well above the poverty line. Hence, those living in poverty will get only about 11 percent of the gains fr…
Deconstructing European poverty measures
The Effects of Union Dissolution on the Economic Resources of Men and Women
We analyze the consequences of union dissolution on the economic resources of men and women in the United States and Germany over three decades, using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and another international survey, the German Socio-Economic Panel, which was modeled after the PSID. Measured either by family size-adjusted "pregovernment" or "postgovernment" incomes (incomes to men and women either before or after taxes and cash transfer…
Are the Effects of Minimum Wage Increases Always Small? New Evidence from a Case Study of New York State
The authors estimate the effect of the 2004-6 New York State (NYS) minimum wage increase from $5.15 to $6.75 per hour on the employment rates of 16- to 29-year-olds who do not have a high school diploma. Using data drawn from the 2004 and 2006 Current Population Survey, they employ difference-in-difference estimates to show that the NYS minimum wage increase is associated with a 20.2% to 21.8% reduction in the employment of less-skilled, less-edu…
Estimating trends in US income inequality using the Current Population Survey
Until Death Do Us Part
Studies that focus on a social security replacement rate will seriously understate the actual total income replacement rate of women following a husband's death. This will especially be the case in countries like the United States where private sources of income play a more important role in income replacement
The timing of falls into poverty after retirement and widowhood
A major concern of workers, even those financially prepared for retirement, is that a small risk of poverty may grow over time. Cross-sectional data showing that older cohorts have higher poverty rates substantiate this concern. Using data from the Retirement History Study, we analyze changes in the hazard of entering poverty as a cohort of elderly couples retire and age and the wives are widowed. The initial fall into poverty among those who wer…
Recent Trends in US Income Distributions in Tax Record Data Using More Comprehensive Measures of Income Including Real Accrued Capital Gains
Use of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax records improves researchers' ability to track income trends, although the focus on taxable market income in this research excludes important income sources. Using IRS data in combination with other data sources, we explore the effect of measuring inequality levels and trends with income, including real accrued capital gains based on Haig-Simons principles. While median market income fell 10% from 1989 to…
Social Security Disability Insurance
The Effect of Creaming on Placement Rates Under the Job Training Partnership Act
The authors investigate the degree to which "creaming"-nonrandom selection of participants-in Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) Title II-A programs is responsible for the high placement rates in those programs. An analysis of data from Tennessee JTPA agencies, in conjunction with Current Population Survey data, shows that creaming does take place, especially through non-selection of those handicapped by poor education or poor health. The extent…
Do Retirement Dreams Come True? The Effect of Unanticipated Events on Retirement Plans
Analyzing data from the Retirement History Study, the authors find that the retirement plans of male workers aged 58-63 in 1969 were significantly affected by unanticipated events over the next decade. Specifically, unanticipated increases in Social Security wealth induced retirement earlier than originally planned, as did deterioration in personal health, whereas the recession of the 1970s tended to delay retirement. This evidence that policy ch…
The Economic Consequences of Disability
Using two longitudinal data sets, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the German Socio-Economic Panel, we compare the relative success of United States and German disability policy in ameliorating the consequences of work-related health impairments. Comparing cross sections, we find Germans with disabilities on average earn only slightly less and enjoy the same household income as those without disabilities, while Americans with disabilities e…
How People with Disabilities Fare When Public Policies Change
Richard V. Burkhauser, Robert H. Haveman, Barbara L. Wolfe, How People with Disabilities Fare When Public Policies Change, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Spring, 1993), pp. 251-269
Marital disruption and poverty
The economic well-being of widows is a growing public concern. Though widowhood undoubtedly precipitates major changes in economic well-being we show that its role in increasing poverty especially in the short term may be seriously overstated by traditional data-collection methods. Using longitudinal [U.S.] data that allow us to follow women as wives and widows we find that the income of husbands is systematically excluded from the income reporte…
The Early Acceptance of Social Security
This paper, using a sample from the 1973 Social Security Exact Match File, tests the importance of economic factors in the decision of male workers to take social security (OASI) benefits at age 62. Previous studies of this decision have concentrated on the flow of pension benefits available to the worker in a single year, but this study emphasizes the asset nature of such benefits. The potential loss in market earnings when OASI benefits are acc…
Post-ADA
The unprecedented growth in the younger disability-transfer population is counter to the goal of integrating working-age people with disabilities into mainstream employment. The onset of a disability need not result in a swift and inevitable movement onto the disability rolls for most people, and work-based policies in the spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act can importantly increase employment. But until both the disability community an…
A Time-Series Analysis on Social Security and Its Effect on the Market Work of Men at Younger Ages
The distortion of the labor/leisure choice by social security during the period the earnings test is in effect is well known. This paper, using a life-cycle asset maximization approach to social security acceptance, shows that the earnings test is not a sufficient cause for such a distortion in the constrained period or over the life cycle. We use time-series analysis to test the net empirical importance of the substitution and wealth effects ass…
Income Security for Workers
The current mix of public and private programs to support workers after they experience disability onset provides benefits to millions of workers and former workers. Yet, despite the large and growing costs of these programs, the inflation-adjusted household incomes of workers with disabilities have been falling for more than two decades, both absolutely and, especially, relative to the incomes of those without disabilities. The aging of the baby…
The contribution and potential of data harmonization for cross-national comparative research
The promise of empirical evidence to inform policy makers about their population's health, wealth, employment and economic well being has propelled governments to invest in the harmonization of country-specific micro-data over the last 25 years. We review the major data harmonization projects launched over this period. These projects include the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), the Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF), the Consortium of Household …
What Policymakers Need to Know about Poverty Dynamics
United States public policy and the elderly
Top incomes and human well-being
Income Support Policies for the Aged
A Time-Series Analysis on Social Security and Its Effect on the Market Work of Men at Younger Ages
The distortion of the labor/leisure choice by social security during the period the earnings test is in effect is well known. This paper, using a life-cycle asset maximization approach to social security acceptance, shows that the earnings test is not a sufficient cause for such a distortion in the constrained period or over the life cycle. We use time-series analysis to test the net empirical importance of the substitution and wealth effects ass…
The Early Acceptance of Social Security
This paper, using a sample from the 1973 Social Security Exact Match File, tests the importance of economic factors in the decision of male workers to take social security (OASI) benefits at age 62. Previous studies of this decision have concentrated on the flow of pension benefits available to the worker in a single year, but this study emphasizes the asset nature of such benefits. The potential loss in market earnings when OASI benefits are acc…
Social Security
Policymaking for Social Security
Social Security, Preretirement Labor Supply, and Saving
Social Security Finance
The Effect of Retirement on Income Distribution
Richard V. Burkhauser, James T. Wilkinson, The Effect of Retirement on Income Distribution: A Comprehensive Income Approach, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Nov., 1983), pp. 653-658
Challenge to Social Security
Disability and Work
Influencing Retirement Behavior
Recent trends toward earlier retirement threaten future supplies of labor and the financial stability of many of our public and private pension systems. One of the few federal efforts now in place to reverse this trend has been the 1977 law outlawing mandatory retirement before age 70 for most American workers. This legislation by itself will have little effect on retirement patterns, because strong financial incentives to retire remain imbedded …
A Challenge to Social Security
The Economics of Private Pensions . Alicia H. Munnell
Disability and Work
Pension plan equity
Pension Plan Equity
Economic Effects of Social Security
A Challenge to Social Security
Pensions in the American Economy
Social security in Panama
Marital disruption and poverty
The economic well-being of widows is a growing public concern. Though widowhood undoubtedly precipitates major changes in economic well-being we show that its role in increasing poverty especially in the short term may be seriously overstated by traditional data-collection methods. Using longitudinal [U.S.] data that allow us to follow women as wives and widows we find that the income of husbands is systematically excluded from the income reporte…
Do Retirement Dreams Come True? The Effect of Unanticipated Events on Retirement Plans
Analyzing data from the Retirement History Study, the authors find that the retirement plans of male workers aged 58-63 in 1969 were significantly affected by unanticipated events over the next decade. Specifically, unanticipated increases in Social Security wealth induced retirement earlier than originally planned, as did deterioration in personal health, whereas the recession of the 1970s tended to delay retirement. This evidence that policy ch…
Measurement Error in Self-Reported Health Variables
Measurement error may be an important source of bias in studies using self-reported health indicators to explain work behavior. As a test of measurement error, the tetrachoric correlation coefficient is used to examine the relationship between two alternative measures of arthritis, a standard self-reported measure and a simulated clinical measure. While the two measures are highly correlated, measurement error is found. Regression analysis demons…
Public Policy Toward Disabled Workers
The timing of falls into poverty after retirement and widowhood
A major concern of workers, even those financially prepared for retirement, is that a small risk of poverty may grow over time. Cross-sectional data showing that older cohorts have higher poverty rates substantiate this concern. Using data from the Retirement History Study, we analyze changes in the hazard of entering poverty as a cohort of elderly couples retire and age and the wives are widowed. The initial fall into poverty among those who wer…
Economics (65 works) · Political science (42 works) · Demographic economics (36 works) · Sociology (35 works) · Retirement, Disability, and Employment (33 works) · Computer Science (25 works) · Social security (23 works) · Economic growth (22 works) · Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis (22 works) · Labour economics (22 works)