The analysis in this paper provides estimates of family welfare losses generated by wage and nonlabor income declines experienced across the Great Recession and by labor market constraints existing postrecession. Welfare losses are greater as families (both married and single) move up the income...

The share of married families in which the wife earns more than her husband has grown significantly during the past few decades. In spite of the higher total earnings these types of families typically experience, the inversion of traditional earnings superiority apparently produces considerable...

This paper calculates the cost of an unemployment shock in terms of family welfare. We find that, overall, families face an average annualized expected dollar equivalent welfare loss of $1,156 when the unemployment rate rises by 1 percentage point. The average welfare loss for married families...