In the last several years, many employers have decided to automatically enroll their new employees in the company 401(k) plan. Using several years of administrative data from three large firms, we analyze the impact of automatic enrollment on 401(k) participation rates, savings behavior, and...

This paper provides a critical review of the empirical literature on the relationship between health insurance, labor supply, and job mobility. We review over 50 papers on this topic, almost exclusively written in the last 10 years. We reach five conclusions. First, there is clear and...

This paper examines whether the effects of housing assistance on food expenditures are different for recent food stamp recipients versus non-recipients. Since housing absorbs a large share of low-income household budgets, it is plausible to expect that housing assistance could free up...

We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to characterize siblings of middle class and poor blacks and whites, testing for racial differences in the probability of having a sibling on the other side of the socioeconomic divide. In support of theories in the urban poverty literature about...

This paper uses newly available information from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Survey to investigate how unmarried mothers' and fathers' expectations about marriage, in addition to their socio-economic and demographic characteristics, are related to transitions to marriage in the...

We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to describe the living arrangements of new, unwed mothers and to examine the determinants of those living arrangements. Our analysis goes beyond previous studies in several ways. First, we examine a wide diversity of living...

In response to increases in cohabitation in the United States, researchers have recently focused on differences between cohabiting and marital unions. One of the more consistent findings in this emerging literature has been a higher rate of domestic violence among cohabiting couples. A prominent...

In the early stages of research on the impact of welfare reform, most research focused on caseload reduction, employment outcomes, and barriers to employment. Even in research that examined the impact of welfare reform on children, the emphases centered on infants, preschoolers, and children at...

"All students" has become a prominent theme in recent instructional reforms."All students" has become a prominent theme in recent instructional reforms. Professional associations as well as federal agencies and state governments propose a fundamental refocusing of what counts as worthwhile...