Employment
2020-Present. Section Chief, Federal Reserve Board
2017-2020. Principal Economist, Federal Reserve Board
2018-2019. Senior Economist, Council of Economic Advisers (on detail from the Federal Reserve)
2015-2017. Senior Economist, Federal Reserve Board
2014-2015. Economist, Federal Reserve Board
2010-2014. Economist, US Congress - Joint Committee on Taxation
2010. Cornell University, Ph.D., Economics
2009. Cornell University, M.A. Economics
2004. Davidson College, B.A., Economics and Political Science
Journal Articles
Forthcoming. "Evaluating the Effects of Geographic Adjustments on Poverty Measures Using Self-Reported Financial Well-Being Scores" Journal of Policy Analysis and Management
2024. "Financial Repercussions of SNAP Work Requirements," with Sam Dodini and Anna Tranfaglia. Journal of Public Economics Article105034.
2024. "Evaluating the Success of the War on Poverty Since 1963 Using an Absolute Full-Income Poverty Measure," with Rchiard Burkhauser, Kevin Corinth, and James Elwell. Journal of Political Economy 132(1): 1-47.
2023. "Earnings Business Cycles: The Covid Recession, Recovery, and Policy Response," with Jacob Mortenson and David Splinter. Journal of Public Economics Article 104983.
2023. "Unemployment Insurance in Survey and Administrative Data," with Jacob Mortenson and David Splinter. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 42(2): 571-579.
2022. "Earnings Shocks and Stabilization During COVID-19," with Jacob Mortenson and David Splinter. Journal of Public Economics Article 104597.
2022. "Income Declines During COVID-19," with Jacob Mortenson and David Splinter. American Economic Association Papers & Proceedings 112: 340-44.
2021. “Recent Trends in U.S. Income Distributions in Tax Record Data Using More Comprehensive Measures of Income Including Real Accrued Capital Gains,” with Philip Armour, Gerald Auten, and Richard Burkhauser. Journal of Political Economy 129(5): 1319-1360.
2021. “Household Incomes in Tax Data: Using Addresses to move from Tax Unit to Household Income Distributions,” with David Splinter and Jacob Mortenson. Journal of Human Resources 56(2): 600-631.
2019. “How Much Does Health Insurance Cost? Comparison of Premiums in Administrative and Survey Data," with David Splinter. Economics Letters 174: 132–135.
2018. “Are central cities poor and non-white?” with Jenny Schuetz, Arturo Gonzalez, Ellen Merry, Barbara Robles, and Anna Tranfaglia. Journal of Housing Economics 40: 83-94.
2017. "Whose Child Is This? Shifting of Dependents Among EITC Claimants Within the Same Household,” with David Splinter and Jacob Mortenson. National Tax Journal 70(4): 737-758.
2017. "Measuring Health Insurance Benefits: The Case of People with Disabilities," with Richard V. Burkhauser and Sean Lyons. Contemporary Economic Policy 35(3): 439-456.
2016. "Using the Pareto Distribution to Improve Estimates of Topcoded Earnings," with Philip Armour and Richard V. Burkhauser. Economic Inquiry 54(2): 1263-1273.
2015. "Accounting for Income Changes over the Great Recession (2007-2010) Relative to Previous Recessions: The Importance of Taxes and Transfers", with Philip Armour and Richard V. Burkhauser. National Tax Journal 68(2): 281-318.
NBER Working Paper version
2014. "Accounting for United States Household Income Inequality Trends: The Changing Importance of Household Structure and Male and Female
Labor Earnings Inequality." Review of Income and Wealth 60(4): 683-701.
2014. "Levels and Trends in United States Income and Its Distribution: A Crosswalk from Market Income Towards a Comprehensive
Haig-Simons Income Approach," with Philip Armour and Richard V. Burkhauser. Southern Economic Journal 81(2): 271-293.
2014. "The One Percent" (correspondence), with Richard V. Burkhauser. Journal of Economic Perspectives 28(1): 245-247.
2013. "Deconstructing Income and Income Inequality Measures: A Crosswalk from Market Income to Comprehensive
Income," with Philip Armour and Richard V. Burkhauser. American Economic Review 101(3): 173-177.
2013. "Measuring the Impact of Valuing Health Insurance on Levels and Trends in Inequality and How the Affordable Care Act
of 2010 Could Affect Them," with Richard V. Burkhauser and Kosali I. Simon. Contemporary Economic Policy 31(4): 779-794.
2013. "Cross-National Inequality Trends Using Historical Tax Return Data" (Book Review of Anthony B. Atkinson and Thomas Piketty
(Eds.) Top Incomes: A Global Perspective). Review of Income and Wealth 59(3): 568-571.
2012. "A 'Second Opinion' on the Economic Health of the Middle Class," with Richard V. Burkhauser and Kosali I. Simon.
National Tax Journal 65: 7-32.
Winner of the 2012 Richard Musgrave Prize for the best paper published in the National Tax Journal
Winner of the 2013 Addington Prize in Measurement from the Fraser Institute
2012. "Recent Trends in Top Income Shares in the USA: Reconciling Estimates from March CPS and IRS Tax Return Data," with Richard V. Burkhauser, Shuaizhang Feng, and Stephen P. Jenkins. Review of Economics and Statistics 94(2): 371-388.
2011. "Does a Higher Income Have Positive Health Effects? Using the Earned Income Tax Credit to explore the Income-Health
Gradient." The Milbank Quarterly 89(4): 694-727.
2011. "Estimating Trends in United States Income Inequality Using the March Current Population Survey: The
Importance of Controlling for Censoring," with Richard V. Burkhauser, Shuaizhang Feng, and Stephen P. Jenkins. Journal of Economic Inequality 9(3): 393-415.
NBER Working Paper version
2011. "Measuring Inequality Using Censored Data: A Multiple Imputation Approach," with Richard V. Burkhauser, Shuaizhang
Feng, and Stephen P. Jenkins. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society - Series A 174(1): 63-81.
IZA Working Paper version
2011. "Peer to Peer Lending: The relationship between language features, trustworthiness, and persuasion
success," with Laura Larrimore, Crystal Jiang, David Markowitz, and Scott Gorski. Journal of Applied Communication Research 39(1): 19-37.
2010. "Measuring Labor Earnings Inequality Using Public-Use March Current Population Survey Data: The Value of Including
Variance and Cell Means when Imputing Topcoded Values," with Richard V. Burkhauser and Shuaizhang Feng. Economics Letters 108(1): 69-72.
Extended NBER Working Paper version, including tables of variances
2009. "Trends in the Relative Household Income of Working-Age Men with Work Limitations: Correcting the Record Using Internal
Current Population Survey Data," with Richard V. Burkhauser. Journal of Disability Policy Studies 20(3): 162-169.
CES Working Paper version (via SSRN)
2009. "Using Internal Current Population Survey Data to Reevaluate Trends in Labor Earnings Gaps By Gender, Race, and
Education Level," with Richard V. Burkhauser. Monthly Labor Review 132(8): 3-18.
2008. "Consistent Cell Means for Topcoded Incomes in the Public Use March CPS
(1976-2007)," with Richard V. Burkhauser, Shuaizhang Feng, and Laura Zayatz. Journal of Economic and Social Measurement 33(2/3): 89-128.
NBER Working Paper version
2022. "Presence and Persistence of Poverty in U.S. Tax Data," with David Splinter and Jacob Mortenson, in Raj Chetty, John N. Friedman, Janet C. Gornick, Barry Johnson, and Arthur Kennickell (Eds.) Measuring Distribution and Mobility of Income and Wealth
2020. "Middle-Class Redistribution: Tax and Transfer Policy for Most Americans," with Adam Looney and David Splinter, in Melissa S. Kearney and Amy Ganz (Eds.). Securing our Economic Future
2016. "Income and Earnings Mobility in U.S. Tax Data," with Jacob Mortenson and David Splinter, in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Ed.). Economic Mobility: Research & Ideas on Strengthening Families, Communities, and the Economy.
2014. "Median Income and Income Inequality: From 2000 and Beyond," with Richard V. Burkhauser, in John Logan (Ed.). U.S. 2010: America After the First Decade of the New Century.
2020. "Improving Housing Payment Projections during the COVID-19 Pandemic," with Erin Troland. FEDS Notes.
2020. "Household Finances Under COVID-19: Evidence from the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking," with Mike Zabek. Consumer & Community Context 2(2): 2-8.
2018. "Shedding Light on Our Economic and Financial Lives," with Alex Durante, Kimberly Kreiss, Ellen Merry, Christina Park, and Claudia Sahm. FEDS Notes.
2017. "Assessing the Severity of Rent Burden on Low-Income Families," with Jenny Schuetz. FEDS Notes.
2016. "Holiday Spending and Financing Decisions in the 2015 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking." FEDS Notes.
2016. "What are the Perceived Barriers to Homeownership for Young Adults?" With Jenny Schuetz and Samuel Dodini. FEDS Working Paper 2016-021.
2015. "Financial Well-Being of Individuals Living in Areas with Concentrated Poverty." FEDS Notes.
2015. "Should You Trust Things You Hear Online? Comparing SHED and Census Bureau Survey Results," with Maximilian Schmeiser and Sebastian Devlin-Foltz. FEDS Notes.
2015. "Does it Matter who Your Parents Are? Findings on Economic Mobility from the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking." FEDS Notes.
2011. "How Changes in Employment, Earnings, and Public Transfers Make the First Two Years of the Great
Recession (2007-2009) Different from Previous Recessions and Why it Matters for Longer Term Trends," with Richard V. Burkhauser.
2009. "Better Estimates of Income and
Its Distribution in the Public-Use March Current Population Survey", with Richard V. Burkhauser in U.S. Census Bureau. 2008 Research Report: Center for Economic Studies and Research Data centers,
US Government Printing Office, Washington DC, pp. 21-27.
Recent Working Papers
2024. "Has Intergenerational Progress Stalled? Income Growth Over Five Generations of Americans" (with Kevin Corinth) Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2024-007
2022. "Poverty in 2021 Corrected for Unemployment Insurance Underreporting"
2021. "Does Access to Bank Accounts as a Minor Improve Financial Capability? Evidence from Minor Bank Account Laws” (with J. Michael Collins and Carly Urban) Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-075
2022. "Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2020" Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Also contributed to seven earlier versions of this report in 2014-2018 and 2020-2021 and a supplemental report during the COVID-19 pandemic, “Update on the Economic Well-Being of U.S Households: July 2020 Results”
2011. "Modeling the Distribution of Taxes of Business Income” Joint Committee on Taxation (JCX-14-13)
2020. Special Achievement Award, Federal Reserve Board
2013. Addington Prize in Measurement, Fraser Institute
2012. Richard Musgrave Prize for the best paper published in the 2012 National Tax Journal
2009. US Census Bureau Dissertation Mentorship Program
2006. Louis Walinsky Fund in Economics Outstanding Teaching Award, Cornell University