Does the Great Recession impact certain segments of the population more dramatically? Researchers find that the effects are not uniform across demographic groups, and have been felt most strongly for men, black and Hispanic workers, youth, and low education workers.

Summary:

In this paper, researchers comprehensively examine how business cycles affect labor market outcomes in the United States. They conduct a detailed analysis of how cycles affect outcomes differentially across persons of differing age, education, race and gender and compare the cyclical sensitivity during the Great Recession to that in the early 1980s recession. They present raw tabulations and estimate a state panel data model that leverages variation across US states in the timing and severity of business cycles. These dramatic differences in the cyclicality across demographic groups are remarkably stable across three decades of time and across recessionary periods versus expansionary periods.