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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 19h

Huge congrats to the brilliant economist and historian Ellora Derenoncourt, one of this year's MacArthur Fellows!

Ellora Derenoncourt - 2026 MacArthur Fellow

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 28/09/2026

dinnertime biscuits with some local flour

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 27/09/2026

Art of the Deal, Chapter 8: Once they have the canopy and bay door, the rest of the plane sells itself

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 27/09/2026

10 years! Our babysitter was only *kinda* high, so everyone is having a good time

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 25/09/2026

also incredible we're only learning this because Oregon State brought it up to fight its women's basketball players' union bid, arguing that <checks notes> bringing a tiger on a football field is, uh .... <checks notes again> "what it looks like when an athletics program runs a university"

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Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I knew but still am amazed at how bad these numbers are, 10th percentile having a worse time of it than peak 10% inflation in 2022.

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 24/09/2026

Did AI increase unemployment among recent college grads this summer? Probably not. Summer of 2026 was pretty normal compared to earlier years. new research from Robert Fairlie and Jane Wu

Line plot of monthly unemployment of recent college graduates, by year.

Figure 2a from https://www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/publications/2026/working-paper/early-impacts-ai-employment-among-recent-college-graduates

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 24/09/2026

Did AI increase unemployment among recent college grads this summer? Probably not. Summer of 2026 was pretty normal compared to earlier years. new research from Robert Fairlie and Jane Wu

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Matt Darling @besttrousers.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

"Prioritizing high-pressure labor markets—those identified by extended periods of low unemployment—is key to providing lower- and middle-wage workers the leverage to bid up their wages."

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Dave Kamper @dskamper.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Huge finding. ICE activity was NOT correlated with immigrant density. It WAS correlated with Black and brown neighborhoods. Shocked, shocked.

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Ezra Golberstein @egolberstein.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Quite a thing to hear from someone who oversaw massive Medicare fraud during his time running a company.

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Elise Gould @elisegould.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

New data alert 🚨 - CEO pay surged in 2025, rising 14% to an average $27.9 million - CEOs are paid 325 times as much as the typical worker in their industry - Between 1978 and 2025, top CEO pay rose 1,316% compared to only a 28% increase for typical workers www.epi.org/blog/ceo-pay... #EconSky

epi.org

CEO pay surged in 2025: CEOs are paid 325 times as much as the typical worker

Key findings: CEO pay at the top 350 U.S. firms rose 14.0% in 2025 to an average of $27.9 million. CEOs made 325 times as much as the typical worker in 2025. It hasn’t always been this way. In 1965, C...

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Jed Kolko @jedkolko.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

The 2025 American Community Survey should have come out today. But it has been delayed because of unusual political encroachment at Census. ACS drives business and policy decisions, especially in local communities, and is the primary input to Census’s immigration estimates.

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Elise Gould @elisegould.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

This morning, the Census Bureau is releasing the latest data on Income, Poverty and Health Insurance! Note: these data are for 2025 and will not reflect changes in the labor market, rising inflation, and attacks on vital safety net policies, hitting families in 2026. www.epi.org/blog/2025-ce...

epi.org

2025 Census data preview: Key measures of earnings, income, and poverty may show early signs of a softer labor market and weaker safety net

The 2025 Census data may show how the Trump administration’s policy choices were starting to impact the economic well-being of workers and their families last year.

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 11/09/2026

Thanks to Trump's war, workers' pay buys less than it did a year ago. Five months and counting...

line plot of annual nominal wage growth, inflation, and real wage growth titled "Workers are losing ground to inflation"

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 13/09/2026

the new city playground is pretty sweet #publicparksrule

castle themed playground with slides and bridges

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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 12/09/2026

Unionization reduces deaths of despair. "Right to work" laws kill. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Labor unions and deaths of despair: Evidence from right-to-work laws☆
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Luke Petach 1

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2026.103176
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Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between union membership and deaths of despair. Using state-level variation in the timing of the adoption of right-to-work laws as a natural experiment, I show that right-to-work laws are associated with a decline in union membership and an increase in deaths of despair. Two-way fixed-effects (TWFE) difference-in-differences (DiD) estimates suggest that the adoption of a right-to-work law is associated with a 2.6 percentage point reduction in union membership and an increase in deaths of despair mortality of 13 additional persons per 100,000, implying there are approximately 7.5 additional deaths of despair for every 1,000 workers who lose union membership. An analysis of mechanisms suggests the increase in mortality is largely driven by increased opioid usage and a concomitant increase in overdose deaths. I support the TWFE results with estimates from two alternative estimators robust to concerns about treatment effect heterogeneity and variation in treatment timing. Estimates from the Callaway and Sant’Anna (2021) estimator and the Borusyak et al. (2024) estimator support the TWFE findings: right-to-work laws reduce union membership and increase deaths of despair.

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 13/09/2026

first biscuits in the new kitchen

biscuits in a brown bowl on a countertop

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 11/09/2026

Thanks to Trump's war, workers' pay buys less than it did a year ago. Five months and counting...

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Great idea for FOIAs!

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Jesse Rothstein @jrothst.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

New paper alert! “Heritability and social interaction in labor market outcomes: Evidence from the population of twins in the United States,” with David Card and Moises Yi, out today in PNAS. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

pnas.org

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

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Caitlin Patler @caitlinpatler.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

🚨 Job Alert! 🚨 Chloe East (CU Boulder Econ) & I are hiring a postdoc to work on causal research on impacts of imm policy on immigrant children & families + rapid response descriptive work. Please share & encourage qualified candidates to apply! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05505

aprecruit.berkeley.edu

PostDoctoral Scholar Employee - Goldman School of Public Policy

University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 04/09/2026

Trump's mass deportations were sold as a major jobs program, but they're still failing to help U.S.-born workers

Line plot title "US-born employment is lower in 2026" with subtitle "Employment to population ratio, US-born, ages 25-54"

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 01/09/2026

I don't recall getting this couch for our dog but I suppose that's what happened

sleeping dog on a couch, resting on a pillow with his cone of shame

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Economic Policy Institute @epi.org · 01/09/2026

So-called right-to-work (RTW) laws undermine workers’ ability to form unions. Unionization rates are clearly lower in RTW states—and since unions raise wages, that suppression lowers pay. The latest from @elisegould.bsky.social and Emma Cohn examines the economic impact of RTW 👇 1/7 #econsky

epi.org

Wages are lower in “right-to-work” states: These states have lower unionization rates and more anti-worker policies

Key takeaways: So-called right-to-work (RTW) laws undermine workers’ ability to form unions. Unionization rates are clearly lower in RTW states—and since unions raise wages, that suppression lowers pa...

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Tom Joscelyn @tomjoscelyn.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

“A Haitian immigrant who had grown increasingly distraught after losing his protection from deportation and being outfitted with an ankle monitor was run over and killed Monday in what his family believes was a suicide.” www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

washingtonpost.com

Haitian immigrant in Ohio takes his own life after losing temporary protected status, family says

Pierre Damas Bel’s family said he felt humiliated by an ankle monitor ICE officers placed on him after the Trump administration canceled protections for thousands of Haitian immigrants.

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Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

This change grants Commerce political appointees veto power over data and research releases by scientists and statisticians at NOAA, NIST, Census, and BEA.

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 31/08/2026

The latest administrative data show the BLS payroll survey got 2025 job growth right, but this appears to have escaped the dude running the Department of Labor, who still points to revisions as evidence the agency can't be trusted. Maybe the credibility problem isn't the agency's?

What to watch: Sonderling acknowledged that BLS faces a credibility problem.

"A lot of people don't trust BLS anymore," he said, pointing to a large downward revision released after the 2024 election that showed Biden-era job growth was weaker than initially reported.
The revision "really hurt the credibility" of the agency, he said.
"I've made a commitment to reform that and be much more transparent on how some of these revisions and job data are done," Sonderling said.
The other side: Trump raised a different set of concerns about BLS credibility when he fired commissioner Erika McEntarfer last summer, accusing her without evidence of rigging the data.

The firing prompted economists across the political spectrum to warn that political interference could undermine confidence in BLS data.

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 29/08/2026

Would definitely eat the Hmong corndog with kua txob and also the Chinese sausage and cheese poppers

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John Carl Baker @johncarlbaker.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

This is a machine to ethnically cleanse the country - and anyone who pretends otherwise is kidding themselves

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 27/08/2026

also see this figure: Wisconsin teachers had no gender pay gap until Scott Walker and Act 10 eliminated collective bargaining over pay. Men pulled ahead, women fell behind, and the gap opened where there was a male superintendent/principal

figure II from Biasi and Sarsons, Flexible Wages, Bargaining, and the Gender Gap, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2021. The figure title is "Salaries of men and women, by time-to-expiration/extension of CBAs."

https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/137/1/215/6352976

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Alex @purplechrain.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

On the subject of Dolly’s union/working class solidarity, her 9 to 5 LP included Woody Guthrie’s ´Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)’, a protest song about the racist mistreatment & media coverage of exploited Mexican farm workers who died when the plane deporting them crashed in 1948.

youtu.be

Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)

YouTube video by Dolly Parton - Topic

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 25/08/2026

Teachers educate 50 million kids a year, but in every state they're paid far less than comparable college graduates. New estimates from Sylvia Allegretto @epi.org @ceprdc.bsky.social

map of the US states titled "The teacher weekly wage penalty is at least 25% in 25 states: Regression-adjusted estimates by state, pooled CPS data for 2020-2025"

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Austin Kocher, PhD @austinkocher.com · 24/08/2026

Prisciliano Trejo Ricano was 29 and had lived in Durham, North Carolina since arriving from Mexico at age three. He was detained this summer at Stewart Detention Center in Georgia and diagnosed with acute leukemia while inside. indyweek.com/news/priscil...

indyweek.com

Mexican Man From Durham Dies From Leukemia While In ICE Custody

Prisciliano Trejo Ricano began feeling ill while detained at a Georgia detention center. He died on Friday, July 24.

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 24/08/2026

Census Bureau-branded conspiracy theories are extremely alarming should raise everyone's antennae about manipulation of federal stats. But so far Trump hasn't cooked the regular data on jobs, inflation, etc. If that happens, we'll find out the same way we found out about this: career staff leaks.

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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 24/08/2026

Cornell prof, great labor economist, & former US Census Bureau chief scientist John Abowd on the administration's recent corruption of standards at Census. lnkd.in/p/g2asDKSa

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 23/08/2026

Introduced the kiddos to Raymond Smullyan and now they love promising me they'll never lie

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 22/08/2026

Raleigh, NC taxpayers are spending $3,000 each -- $521 million total -- on Trump's mass deportations. What's your town paying? What could it fund instead? www.epi.org/deportation-...

Instead of spending
$521,361,691
or $3,068 per taxpayer, on mass deportations, Raleigh city taxpayers could fund
2,427
School Teachers
OR
2,998
Firefighters
OR
24,918
People on Medicaid
OR
11,039
Veterans' Medical Care
OR
14,659
Head Start Slots
OR
1,558
Registered Nurses

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Center for American Progress @americanprogress.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Lawyers for President Donald Trump issued a letter demanding the Center for American Progress retract a factual report or face a $5 billion lawsuit.

americanprogress.org

STATEMENT: Baseless Threats Won't Stop Our Independent Research, Says CAP's Neera Tanden

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 20/08/2026

straight-up corruption of a federal statistical agency for partisan ends in a just world everyone who signed off on this would be fired

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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 20/08/2026

straight-up corruption of a federal statistical agency for partisan ends in a just world everyone who signed off on this would be fired

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