Kathryn Anne Edwards
@keds_economist
Followers
7,201
Following
1,429
Media
592
Statuses
6,202
Economist, adjunct @RANDCorporation , Contributor @opinion . @UTAustin @WIeconomics grad.
Joined March 2010
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
MARTIN AL 9009
• 184921 Tweets
Juliana
• 144014 Tweets
#WWERaw
• 95407 Tweets
Ceci Flores
• 92859 Tweets
Atlético
• 52895 Tweets
Hulk
• 51492 Tweets
Pritchard
• 47378 Tweets
ニンダイ
• 45871 Tweets
Seth
• 40116 Tweets
#NBAFinals
• 27585 Tweets
土砂降り
• 26752 Tweets
Jayson Tatum
• 23753 Tweets
Rony
• 22188 Tweets
Otis
• 20764 Tweets
Estevão
• 20134 Tweets
MITB
• 17714 Tweets
大雨の中
• 14002 Tweets
Textor
• 10221 Tweets
![[andy west]](https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1615061911732686857/N8CE6Z-U.jpg)
Pinned Tweet
After ten years on twitter, I’m finally ready to start tweeting. Follow me for insights into unemployment, employment, and economic inequality. Be warned, I plan on speeding up the pace from one tweet/decade.
Links to sources are in replies.
18
6
135
Big data release this morning. The Social Security Top Ten Baby Names of 2021.
100
109
2K
Sen. Kennedy praised affordable childcare as a goal but was skeptical of costs.
“Fair question is: where’s the money gonna come from? Doc?”
(I’m doc) My response is that tax cuts can’t achieve social policy, and they’ve had twenty years and trillions of dollars to prove it.
53
317
1K
Today's tight labor market has many experts claiming we are in a worker shortage.
And after rising for fifty years, the Labor Force Participation Rate has been falling since 2000. Are people getting lazy? Are jobs getting automated? Are public benefits too generous?
1/
38
156
721
The biggest argument against the expansion of the Child Tax Credit is that it creates a work disincentive: give parents money, and parents will work less.
I find it hollow and hypocritical to the point of cruelty, considering what's at stake: a reduction in child poverty.
1/
24
139
702
This is the three-month rolling average of employed workers who are not at work due to child care issues. It spikes at the start of the pandemic, declines slowly for two years, and then starts spiking again in April 2022.
We are at levels now not seen since the fall of 2020.
24
312
683
I've seen a few articles recently in which employers say they cannot find workers, and they assign blame to unemployment benefits being too generous.
This is one of the most important figures that provide context for hiring out of a recession
1/
19
177
620
Just out: Census Bureau estimates morning of poverty and income in the U.S. in 2021. The biggest headline:
Poverty, as measured by the supplemental rate, fell to a historical low of 7.8%. For children, child poverty fell by half to a historical low of 5.2%.
More in thread:
1/
7
159
400
As part of the conversations on child care and paid family leave, a reminder that women's labor force participation (age 20 and over) was the same last month as it was in December 1988.
10
158
406
A thread summarizing Bill Sprigg's letter to economists.
2
142
379
I wrote that the Child Tax Credit is something rich kids get regardless and the expired expansion went to poor kids, which is good.
I got pushback: Shouldn't poor parents work? Don't we enable poverty by helping them?
Below: the (imo) two most misunderstood aspects of poverty.
Before the pandemic, the Child Tax Credit was a subsidy for middle- and upper-income parents. We rarely asked in the public sphere if those parents deserved the money or what they did with it. It's just to help parents.
It flowed mainly to rich families:
1/
7
102
196
9
119
325
I've seen questions/speculations that many academics are leaving for industry.
I have a paper that follows the career trajectories of ~9k PhDs in STEM who graduated 2000-2008 that looks at exactly this.
Link below, highlights in thread.
7
108
332
Reading an article about how it's hard to hire food service workers right now. Here's four things I wish each story on this would mention:
One: What is the access to in-person schooling in the area? What is the landscape of day care closures/availability?
4
99
300
I testified this afternoon in front of the senate, warning that reducing child care is a contractionary labor supply policy—the last thing you want in an inflation fight.
And as important, I’m wearing my most bipartisan looking ensemble.
11
18
290
I find that economics is a profession that often goes out of its way to make you feel stupid for not understanding something.
So I wanted to write this thank you thread for the heroes
@stlouisfed
.
1/
5
30
278
Thanks for the love y’all.
You can tell by the slight shake in my voice and the trips over a couple words that I’m pretty nervous!
But I’m also determined. We need social investments and the will to execute them, no more cop outs.
Sen. Kennedy praised affordable childcare as a goal but was skeptical of costs.
“Fair question is: where’s the money gonna come from? Doc?”
(I’m doc) My response is that tax cuts can’t achieve social policy, and they’ve had twenty years and trillions of dollars to prove it.
53
317
1K
26
31
268
This isn't conjecture. Yellen didn't tweet-source herself from the hearing, but I can. The right to an abortion is directly linked to women's eocnomic outcomes.
Read below for sources.
Sec. Yellen in a Senate hearing weighs in on abortion debate: "I believe that eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades."
29
223
1K
9
100
247
Early evidence shows that the refundable child tax credit, deposited in advance in parents' account, is associated with less food insecurity and financial hardship.
Read more from the census here:
6
92
249
The authors show that the demand for more education and experience is driven by the size of the pool of unemployed workers.
It's not that workers don't want jobs, or that the economy has shifted, it's that employers are trying to get more when it's a buyers market.
6/
4
55
226
A couple months ago, I was quoted in a NYT story on the racial disparities in Unemployment Insurance benefits, alongside
@DarrickHamilton
@WSpriggs
@econjared
.
Shortly afterwards, I was accused of virtue signaling my wokeness and making claims that had no evidence base.
1/
6
54
205
Before the pandemic, the Child Tax Credit was a subsidy for middle- and upper-income parents. We rarely asked in the public sphere if those parents deserved the money or what they did with it. It's just to help parents.
It flowed mainly to rich families:
1/
7
102
196
IRS aims to create its own software so many Americans can prepare/file taxes for free.
Intuit and HR Block are responding with ballooning lobbying dollars. This is a clear admission that their "free file" offering is more of a hollow bait-and-switch.
6
62
201
Y'ALL!
I write this morning with the incredible news that my JOB MARKET PAPER was published after four post-grad years of slogging effort.
(see other tweet thread for serious, professional presentation of findings; it's goss time here).
14
13
198
"Accept with revisions."
That's a thing that can happen on a first submission?!?!?
This will be the crowning achievement of my career. I should probably quit being an economist and move on to something else, because I've now peaked.
4
0
198
Some mid-week graphletics:
This chart shows the one-month flows of temporary layoff workers. Between June and July, the combined flow to permanent layoff and out of the labor force was larger than the flow to employment.
Signs of a long, slow recovery.
7
98
177
UI recipients have been anecdotally accused of fraud all summer. Employers claim that workers refuse jobs (fraud) because the benefits are too good. Research routinely said this wasn’t true. But there is evidence of widespread applicant malfeasance in PPP:
5
55
172
The market for childcare in the U.S. is a failure. This is a thread to give some context to that statement.
First, prices. The price of child care has risen faster than prices overall (even for things like housing) over the past twenty years. It's not close.
1/
8
67
167
Y’all!! My op-Ed wasn’t just published, it was the cover of the Opinion section.
Hat tip to my Dallas fam for the photo!! (And for sending me a copy!)
Op-Ed here:
6
12
164
It's the last workweek of the year, bookended by two federal holidays and marked by spiking covid cases. Many take the week off.
Good reminder that among private sector workers:
~1 in 5 do not have paid holidays
~1 in 5 do not have paid vacation
~1 in 4 do not have paid sick.
2
45
162
Brilliant stuff here. The Paycheck Protection Program needs the level of scrutiny that Unemployment Insurance has received.
New from me: The $800 billion Paycheck Protection Program was supposed to keep workers employed. But its power to do so was limited, and gradually got watered down. 1/
10
216
494
4
58
163
In exciting but bittersweet news, Friday was my last day at the RAND Corporation.
In the near term, I am a self-fashioned Policy Consultant. I'll adjunct for RAND, work as an independent consultant for other organizations, teach classes, and write/post/tweet.
11
2
161
It’s official. I’m a
@washingtonpost
Department of Data agent. Got the ID card in the mail.
Thanks
@andrewvandam
!
7
3
161
New article in WSJ discussing how many workers have been left out of the pandemic recovery because they cannot afford child care.
Good chance to review the most common questions/comments I get about child care:
1/
4
46
158
I have a joke about gaslighting women who are sexually harassed in the workplace. I mean, obviously it was a joke. It just sounds bad out of context. If you were there you’d know it was a joke.
0
17
154
Averages do not predict all individual experiences, but individual experiences do not negate the average.
Employers can have a hard time finding a worker, but the larger trend is that workers have a hard time finding a job.
/n
5
22
148
If you want a succinct summary of the nuances of economic inequality as its evolved over the past forty years, check out my pithy, erudite quote in Rolling Stone:
(And before you ask, yes, I *have* had media training😂)
7
23
155
This is one of the greatest honors I have ever received.
LAMP! SO CLOSE!
No staged books here. Real working office. Respect. Love fan. Turn on lamp. 8/10
@keds_economist
7
5
323
10
6
150
Kicking off the last workweek of the year with a professional brag.
This year I got the opinion writing version of the EGOT: published op-eds in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal. Or is it the Triple Crown of Having Opinions?
Either way, big deal.
7
2
146
Second thing about poverty, especially relevant to the Child Tax Credit: for the most part, the poorest a child's parent will ever be is when they are born, because the parent is young and is at the bottom of their lifetime earnings potential.
9/
2
10
139
I went on
@NewsHour
to talk about the high cost of diapers, the few sources of assistance, and what that says about the US's (under)investment in young families.
And of course, two days later I went into labor!
17
13
145
First time on
@Marketplace
! Talked with Kai about unemployment insurance.
My key point:
“We have an economy that has risk that workers are exposed to that we should cover efficiently, because that’s the best investment for the economy.”
7
26
138
On the eve of the $600 expiration, I think there are five key arguments for its continuation, based on available data.
1/n
(thread)
2
71
139
It shows the share of job postings that required a bachelor degree (left axis) and the unemployment rate (right axis). The same relationship holds for experience. Here's the share requiring four years or more:
2/
4
21
134
The expanded Child Tax Credit could be thought of as a subsidy for poor families, but if you take into account the dynamics of poverty, its more accurately described as an income stabilizer for children whose families are experiencing poverty.
8/
2
22
132
I have a new op-ed out today in Bloomberg about what insights economic research can offer into the consequences of overturning Roe v. Wade. Link below, and sources in the thread.
1/
5
82
134
Last night I spoke on
@GBHForumNetwork
and said that economists aren't perfect, aren't unbiased, and do not have all the answers.
A more succinct version: we can get things really wrong. A really formative example for me is Brooksley Born.
(thread)
1/
6
58
132
Should we invest in child care to accelerate recovery and support work in the future?
Some would argue that ~1-2 million moms who left work this recession aren't a large share of the workforce.
Interestingly, ~1-2 million was the estimated number of auto workers in 2008.
1/
4
43
133
@jenniheissel
Every so often I have to check in with my employer to see if I still have a job. At this rate of child care loss, it would take weeks to find out if I’ve been fired.
🙃
2
3
131
Some stats for new econ PhDs. Here are my journal pubs by school year since finishing in '16:
16-17: 0
17-18: 0
18-19: 0
19-20: 1
20-21: 2
21-22: 4
What explains the variation?
1/
2
5
131
Y'all, getting published is a good day, but I think the notification of award might be better. Just got my second NIH grant as PI.
😎
^Who's in for a European-style, multi-hour (zoom) lunch? This bragging needs somewhere to go!!!!
12
1
129
So I guess I just misunderstood the assignment of “come testify to the senate” as “cosplay as Elizabeth Warren.”
2
1
129
Why is unemployment so hard to file for? We back into the explanation that the IT system is outdated and overwhelmed.
But, as Gov. DeSantis admits, that's not an accident. Its "deliberately designed to frustrate people" to discourage application.
14
92
116
I was honored yesterday to testify in front of House Ways and Means about the 2017 tax law. I argued the $2trillion price tag represented an enormous economic opportunity cost to invest in families, rather than investing in corporations hoping they pass on money to families.
8
19
124
How many more women would work in the US if we had policies that supported working parents?
I'll walk you through my educated guess, which is around 3.5 million.
1/
4
30
114
The expanded credit gave $300/month for children under five and $250/month for children up to age 18. The average family has two children.
What does it say about the labor market that a million parents would say a job isn't worth $600 a month?
4/
1
12
110
Big first for me today: A byline in the Wall Street Journal!!!!
I contributed to the year in review, and assessed the duality of the labor market of 2021. Please read and share!
2
18
110
Many are asking why, even though the CARES Act set an expiration date for UI benefits four months in the future, Congress did not begin negotiating until the week it expired.
Welcome to the wonderful world of waiting for federal UI reform. Our story begins in 1976.
(thread)
1/
4
40
102
The median duration of poverty is 11 months, meaning the majority of people who become poor are poor less than a year.
Here's census's visual of attrition out of poverty:
7/
2
12
101
When the next recession hits and the labor market goes south, Unemployment Insurance will not be ready.
Rewatching this 2020 clip of Ron DeSantis admitting Florida's broken system was broken on purpose to keep laid off workers from accessing benefits.
6
45
106
Wow. Really proud of this 8/10, considering that I am in my bedroom closet and this video was at night.
Clip is from a
@GBHForumNetwork
panel where I talked about how the pandemic makes us more sympathetic to the unemployed than we normally are.
Love the color. Appointment book. Add light. Points for Frances Perkins print. 8/10
@keds_economist
1
2
92
1
4
106
My first byline in Bloomberg!
The expanded child tax credit was uniquely well-designed to address Americans' increasingly precarious economic reality, says
@keds_economist
0
16
31
5
12
104
“Are individuals in our economy able to make choices, or is a failed child care market making it for them?”
Families have fewer children and lose the income of a worker because they can’t afford care.
It’s not just about investments. It’s about who is empowered.
1
32
102
These figures are from a paper published last year that examined job postings and state unemployment rates. I highly recommend it.
The authors refer to this trend as "upskilling."
3/
2
13
97
It's also sets up a straw man: racism is about what white people feel, not what black people experience.
12/
1
12
100
First: there's an idea that people in poverty are some kind of permanent underclass, a fixed set of people who are different from us.
This is fairly inaccurate.
2/
1
8
90
What's it like to work as an economist at a non-academic research institute, like RAND? This is a question I get a lot, especially during job market season.
#EconTwitter
I have a new report out today that I think offers one perspective.
(thread)
1/
2
20
98
Working on a paper, I find myself once again staring at the credit denial rates by race and family income, and that the black-white difference *increases* with income.
Nearly 1 in 4 (23%) Black adults in families with income above $100,000 were denied credit over a year.
3
29
95
You cannot work in a restaurant and care for children at the same time.
More than half of food service workers are women. 25% of Black women and 30% of Hispanic women work in a service occupation (which includes food).
BLS CPS tables 10 and 11
1
8
96
But let's assume that it does. If the expanded child tax credit is made permanent, a million parents stop working.
The go-to interpretation: and therefore the benefit is bad.
I think this is wrong. It should be: and therefore the labor market is bad.
3/
2
6
94
Went in front of Congress again! This time joint economic committee.
How many bipartisan looking ensembles do I have? A lot.
4
3
96
You can compare to the top names from the 2010s:
Whither Jacob?
5
5
91
The lesson? Increasing accommodation and accessibility can increase labor force participation of individuals with a disability.
18/
1
8
92
American is 350 million strong; we have all kinds. Yes, there are parents who are poor, always will be poor, who do not work much, and who might work less if they get the Child Tax Credit.
But they are atypical, and serve more as a political bogeyman than a policy lesson.
14/
3
9
89
A Census study of poverty found that, over a four-year period, 34% of the U.S. experienced poverty for at least two months (episodic), but only 2.8% experienced poverty for ALL 48 months (chronic).
3/
1
17
87
It's also a pretty common speculation coming out recessions to wonder if the U.S. labor market has shifted in some unalterable way, that unemployed workers don't have the right skills for the the jobs in "Today's Economy," and that we need to retrain or educate more.
4/
1
12
85
What many working women perceive as their own shortcomings in the struggle to manage work, household chores, and child care is instead the result of public policy failure.
I explain to
@NPRMichel
in this story from
@npratc
3
30
91
New op-ed from me this week:
We often blame single mothers' poverty on their marital status, rather than a labor market that doesn't produce high enough wages to support a family on a single income.
Sources in thread:
1/
5
26
89
It says that the US has not raised the minimum wage since 2007. It sits at $7.25.
A full-time (35 hours), full-year (50 weeks) worker makes $12,687.50 a year.
5/
1
5
86
If a policymaker cared about moms working, they'd have decades of evidence pointing them to policy solutions.
None of those include abandoning a historic reduction in child poverty.
n/
3
2
88
Two: Have their been many wage and hour complaints made about restaurants in the area? Is it a particular problem there?
The food service industry has the highest concentration of wage and hour violations of wage theft.
1
11
86
Is there a female economist version of The Avengers, some kind of supergroup of skill that comes together for the good of humanity?
Yes, yes there is.
Here what they have to say:
7
15
88
Child poverty declined in 2021 to a historic and unprecedented degree. But black child poverty is still three times white child poverty.
When we walk away from effective anti-poverty policy like the Child Tax Credit, important to keep in mind who we are leaving behind.
3
25
87
That shift would certainly explain employers wanting more education and experience (the education and experience lines trending up), but it wouldn't explain why that demand wasn't sustained (the lines falling again).
5/
1
7
81
The hardest hit industry outside of leisure and hospitality is child day care services, which was down 35.7% of jobs last April from February. It added 25,000 jobs last month, and is 11% down.
For reference, total nonfarm decline was 14.7% last April and is 4.4% now.
1
36
81
In their words:
"For both education and experience requirements, we find a positive and significant relationship between employer skill requirements and labor market slack—even when controlling for the same job title at the same employer in the same state."
8/
1
7
79
Latest from me. The 71+ million Boomers should be fighting hard for paid leave. Its most associated with the birth of a child, but is used just as often for an ill family member, including a sick or dying parent.
Boomers deserve their children's care and presence at the end.
3
13
82
I thought they had two really compelling methods to show that this is the case. First, they looked at requirements within-job title within *the same employer* !
7/
1
5
76
In my
@opinion
piece this morning, I argue that we need a new unemployment system to replace the confederation of 53 separate state-run programs we currently have.
What would that system look like? Details in thread.
1/
1
18
79
Four: what is the local vaccination rate, mask rules, and mask compliance? Are workers expected to enforce any of that? Has there been an incidence of violence towards workers?
1
9
78
The lesson: systemic racism has a labor market cost.
23/
7
13
81
The lesson? Making care affordable and accessible increases mothers' participation.
21/
4
5
79
Between 2017 and 2019, while the unemployment rate dropped to 3.5%, one in four Americans experienced episodic poverty (a spell of two months or more).
Not only is our tolerance for poverty high, our labor market's ability to reduce it has limits.
3
28
76
They also correspond to the ages of the Baby Boomers.
Word of warning: All definitions of generations are made up. All of them. They are made up by lots of people for lots of reasons. (I have a paper where I talk about this).
4/
2
5
78
Some people come out the gate swinging and get publications and journal hits and that's great, I absolutely struggled to get my research up and running. Success is a lot easier to advertise than struggle.
Keep at it.
1
4
79
Whenever there is a policy proposed to help children, there's a knee-jerk discussion of what kind of employment effect it will have on parents.
You might think that's a reasonable question, but it's one that often lacks perspective or any sense of proportion.
1/
2
20
76
Why do we say that Unemployment Insurance is structurally racist? Is it just because it was started during the Jim Crow Era? Was it really intentional? And does that really matter today?
I have an op-ed explaining the history in the
@latimes
.
4
34
76
Just ran into a friend at an in-person conference and amid our excitement in seeing each other she said, "Oh are you huggable???"
^which is a great way to refer to being vaccinated.
2
4
75
UI was racist at enactment because it did not treat White and Black workers equally. Whatever the reason or excuse, the outcome was exclusion.
15/
1
9
77