The U.S. labor market is a constantly churning sea of job creation and destruction. On average, 18 million new jobs appear each year, while 15 million jobs are lost.1 The vitality of the labor market creates great opportunities for those who can navigate it successfully, but it also creates great risk and uncertainty for working families.
One result of a constantly changing labor market is that many American families experience substantial year-to-year instability in their earnings. While there is an ongoing debate whether that volatility has increased significantly in recent years, there is no question that it exists. About one in five workers experiences a decline in earnings of at least 25 percent from one year to the next, while one in nine workers sees a decline of 50 percent of more.
Some of the volatility in earnings reflects family decisions to change jobs or to take time off from work to devote more time to family responsibilities. It also reflects involuntary loss of earnings as a consequence of illness or injury. Some of the volatility, however, is the outcome of the shifting job market as workers are displaced by slack demand, technological change, or competition from foreign producers.
Elements of the social safety net can help cushion the impact of a temporary decline in earnings because of a job loss, but there are few government programs to help those who suffer a permanent reduction in earnings. Unemployment Insurance (UI) is the main bulwark against temporary job loss, but the UI program has many gaps and is not designed to help with long-term job displacement or reduced earnings once a worker is reemployed. Programs explicitly designed to help displaced workers such as Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) are limited in scope and reach very few workers.
The federal income tax provides some assistance to families who experience a decline in earnings through the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), but that help is limited to those families whose earnings are low enough to qualify for the credit. Moreover, the EITC itself and other features of the tax system can exacerbate the consequences of earnings fluctuations by imposing higher taxes on families whose income fluctuates from year-to-year than on families with the same average earnings but whose earnings remain steady.
This paper explores the extent of earnings and employment instability faced by American families and possible ways to improve the social safety net and the federal tax code to help cushion the blow of job displacement and the complete or partial loss of earnings that too-often occur in today’s economy.
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