Firms and Unemployment Insurance Take-up / Marta Lachowska, Isaac Sorkin, Stephen A. Woodbury.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lachowska, Marta.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Sorkin, Isaac.

Woodbury, Stephen A.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w30266.

NBER working paper series no. w30266

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2022.

Summary:

We use administrative data to quantify the employer's role in unemployment insurance (UI) take-up. First, there are employer effects in both claiming and appeals, and, consistent with deterrence effects, these are negatively correlated. Second, low-wage workers are less likely to claim and more likely to have their claims appealed than median-wage workers, and employer effects explain a large share of these income gradients. Third, high-claiming and low-appealing employers are desirable employers: they are higher-paying and have lower separation rates. Finally, the dominant source of targeting error in the UI system is that eligible workers do not apply. Our findings emphasize a novel dimension of the role of employers in the labor market, and have implications for the financing of UI.

Notes:

Print version record

July 2022.