This brief summarizes the Great Recession’s impact on public employment and the public sector job losses driven by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Our analysis points to the importance of focusing on the public sector as policymakers respond to the COVID-19 crisis.
Category: Publications
COVID-19 Fiscal Impacts: What can we expect?
Published May 14, 2020 as part of the UC Berkeley Labor Center’s Covid-19 Series: Resources, Data, and Analysis for California. The economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have been severe: at least 30 million people have lost their jobs and millions of others have seen their incomes decline. Governments are spending billions of dollars on public health and the safety net….
Framing the Case for Supporting Immigrants
To build support for a cause, activists frame issues in ways they think will resonate with the public. UC Berkeley researchers find that one of the primary tactics for activists—using a civil rights framework to frame an issue—can actually decrease public support. Particularly in the case of immigrant rights and legalization, activists should reevaluate their strategies in order to successfully persuade the public to adopt change.
Retaining Teachers of Color to Improve Student Outcomes
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…
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…