Low pay for teachers has received significant national attention, but having a diverse teaching workforce is also critical for improving student outcomes. A large but often ignored problem in America’s education system is the lack of diverse representation among teachers. There are very few male teachers of color in the classroom, and the turnover rate…
Author: sh
Finding Employment After Contact with the Carceral System
People who have been arrested, convicted of a crime, or incarcerated face many barriers to employment. While much of the difficulty in finding employment is due to institutional exclusion, a UC Berkeley researcher has attributed some of the problem to ineffective job search methods. What can policymakers do to ensure that people who have interacted…
The Post-Recession Labor Market: An Incomplete Recovery
Recovery from the Great Recession has been slow and extremely prolonged. It was tempting to conclude, at various points, that we had recovered as much as we were going to. Even after the official unemployment rate receded, other indicators of recovery remained much more mixed—the share of people employed remained well below pre-recession levels; wages…
The Great Recession, Families, and the Safety Net
The Great Recession caused significant hardship for many U.S. families. Safety net programs—some of which were expanded during the recession and its recovery—mitigated some of the worst effects, but were not available to all households and were insufficient to compensate for the depth of the downturn. What can policymakers learn from the adequacy of the…
What Really Caused the Great Recession?
The Great Recession devastated local labor markets and the national economy. Ten years later, Berkeley researchers are finding many of the same red flags blamed for the crisis: banks making subprime loans and trading risky securities. Congress just voted to scale back many Dodd-Frank provisions. Does another recession lie around the corner? IRLE Policy Brief