IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2005.08763.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Distributional Short-Term Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on Wages in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Yonatan Berman

Abstract

This paper uses Bureau of Labor Statistics employment and wage data to study the distributional impact of the COVID-19 crisis on wages in the United States by mid-April. It answers whether wages of lower-wage workers decreased more than others', and to what extent. We find that the COVID-19 outbreak exacerbates existing inequalities. Workers at the bottom quintile in mid-March were three times more likely to be laid off by mid-April compared to higher-wage workers. Weekly wages of workers at the bottom quintile decreased by 6% on average between mid-February and mid-March and by 26% between mid-March and mid-April. The average decrease for higher quintiles was less than 1% between mid-February and mid-March and about 10% between mid-March and mid-April. We also find that workers aged 16-24 were hit much harder than older workers. Hispanic workers were also hurt more than other racial groups. Their wages decreased by 2-3 percentage points more than other workers' between mid-March and mid-April.

Suggested Citation

  • Yonatan Berman, 2020. "The Distributional Short-Term Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on Wages in the United States," Papers 2005.08763, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2005.08763
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2005.08763
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adams-Prassl, Abi & Boneva, Teodora & Golin, Marta & Rauh, Christopher, 2020. "Inequality in the impact of the coronavirus shock: Evidence from real time surveys," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    2. François Bourguignon, 2011. "Non-anonymous growth incidence curves, income mobility and social welfare dominance," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(4), pages 605-627, December.
    3. Roland Benabou, 2000. "Unequal Societies: Income Distribution and the Social Contract," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 96-129, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Larrimore, Jeff & Mortenson, Jacob & Splinter, David, 2023. "Earnings business cycles: The Covid recession, recovery, and policy response," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    2. Larrimore, Jeff & Mortenson, Jacob & Splinter, David, 2022. "Earnings shocks and stabilization during COVID-19," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    3. Ainaa, Carmen & Brunetti, Irene & Mussida, Chiara & Scicchitano, Sergio, 2021. "Who lost the most? Distributive effects of COVID-19 pandemic," GLO Discussion Paper Series 829, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    4. Giovanni Gallo & Michele Raitano, 2020. "SOS incomes: Simulated effects of COVID-19 and emergency benefits on individual and household income distribution in Italy," Working Papers 566, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    5. Carmen Aina & Irene Brunetti & Chiara Mussida & Sergio Scicchitano, 2023. "Distributional effects of COVID-19," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 13(1), pages 221-256, March.
    6. Kosteas, Vasilios D. & Renna, Francesco & Scicchitano, Sergio, 2022. "Covid-19 and Working from Home: toward a "new normal"?," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1013, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Graziella Bertocchi, 2011. "The Vanishing Bequest Tax: The Comparative Evolution Of Bequest Taxation In Historical Perspective," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 107-131, March.
    2. Foliano, Francesca & Tonei, Valentina & Sevilla, Almudena, 2024. "Social restrictions, leisure and well-being," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    3. Claudia Hupkau & Barbara Petrongolo, 2020. "Work, Care and Gender during the COVID‐19 Crisis," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(3), pages 623-651, September.
    4. Stephen P. Jenkins & Philippe Van Kerm, 2016. "Assessing Individual Income Growth," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(332), pages 679-703, October.
    5. Dan Anderberg, 2007. "Inefficient households and the mix of government spending," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 127-140, April.
    6. Fawaz, Fadi & Rahnamamoghadam, Masha & Valcarcel, Victor, 2014. "A Refinement of the Relationship between Economic Growth and Income Inequality in Developing Countries," MPRA Paper 55268, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Joshua Aizenman & Yothin Jinjarak, 2012. "Income Inequality, Tax Base and Sovereign Spreads," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 68(4), pages 431-444, December.
    8. Benabou, Roland, 2005. "Inequality, Technology and the Social Contract," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1595-1638, Elsevier.
    9. Musab Kurnaz & Mehmet Soytas, 2019. "Early Childhood Investment and Income Taxation," 2019 Meeting Papers 290, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Basso, Gaetano & Boeri, Tito & Caiumi, Alessandro & Paccagnella, Marco, 2020. "The New Hazardous Jobs and Worker Reallocation," IZA Discussion Papers 13532, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Jung, Haeil & Kim, Jun Hyung & Hong, Gihyeon, 2023. "Impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on single-person households in South Korea," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    12. Alan B. Krueger, 2002. "Inequality, Too Much of a Good Thing," Working Papers 845, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    13. Carlos Díaz & Sebastian Fossati & Nicolás Trajtenberg, 2022. "Stay at home if you can: COVID‐19 stay‐at‐home guidelines and local crime," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(4), pages 1067-1113, December.
    14. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5cmk499mce8lvosvi0jdis0dla is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Mathilde Bouvier & François Roubaud & Mireille Razafindrakoto & Roberta Teixeira, 2022. "Labour market transitions in the time of Covid-19 in Brazil:a panel data analysis," Working Papers DT/2022/02, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    16. Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln & Dirk Krueger & André Kurmann & Etienne Lalé & Alexander Ludwig & Irina Popova, 2023. "The Fiscal and Welfare Effects of Policy Responses to the Covid-19 School Closures," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(1), pages 35-98, March.
    17. Nicholas W. Papageorge & Matthew V. Zahn & Michèle Belot & Eline Broek-Altenburg & Syngjoo Choi & Julian C. Jamison & Egon Tripodi, 2021. "Socio-demographic factors associated with self-protecting behavior during the Covid-19 pandemic," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 691-738, April.
    18. Brandily, Paul & Brébion, Clément & Briole, Simon & Khoury, Laura, 2021. "A poorly understood disease? The impact of COVID-19 on the income gradient in mortality over the course of the pandemic," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    19. Elena Ellmeier & Melanie Koch & Thomas Scheiber, 2023. "Saving behavior along the income distribution during the COVID-19 pandemic," Focus on European Economic Integration, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue Q1/23, pages 7-21.
    20. Houštecká, Anna & Koh, Dongya & Santaeulàlia-Llopis, Raül, 2021. "Contagion at work: Occupations, industries and human contact," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    21. Kouki, Amairisa, 2023. "Beyond the “Comforts” of work from home: Child health and the female wage penalty," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2005.08763. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.