Ben Zipperer
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benzipperer.org
Ben Zipperer
@benzipperer.org
7.6K followers 680 following 610 posts
Economist at @epi.org

https://www.epi.org/people/ben-zipperer/
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benzipperer.org
here's hoping this unwinds gradually and sooner rather than later
Line plot of the historical monthly S&P price to earnings ratio. The title of the plot is "Stock valuations are approaching 2000 bubble peaks".
November 11, 2025 at 3:47 AM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
donmoyn.bsky.social
*Women receive substantially lower "potential" ratings despite receiving higher performance ratings
*Differences in potential ratings account for half of the gender promotion gap
*Women’s lower potential ratings do not reflect future performance: women subsequently outperform male colleagues
November 10, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
royalpratt.bsky.social
Here’s video of federal agents doing a drive by pepper spraying that hit a father and his one-year old on Saturday when the Feds were hitting Little Village and Cicero
November 9, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
jacobsoboroff.bsky.social
"When I picked up my granddaughter from the federal agents, she had a dirty diaper, a bruise on her face, and was developing a rash. She was exhausted and cried… My heart aches knowing this could happen to others, to my kids, or even me, despite being U.S. citizens.”
November 8, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
ericumansky.bsky.social
So immigration agents drove off in a citizen’s car with a toddler in the back.

**Then DHS refused to answer questions about it.**

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...
Ms. McLaughlin did not respond to questions about the agents driving away in Mr. Quiñonez's car with the child inside. Nor did she respond to questions about how the child was cared for while she was in the custody of federal agents, including where she was kept and whether she was fed, given water or had her diaper changed.
November 8, 2025 at 2:14 AM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
adamjst.bsky.social
"With ICE inmates, you can see that I’m making a profit."
- Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott

www.ky3.com/2025/09/17/g...
Arnott says there’s an average of 240 ICE detainees in the jail each day. The federal government picks up the tab, creating a new revenue stream for the county. “With ICE inmates, you can see that I’m making a profit. Those beds would go totally unused, so that’s $8 million more that supplements the local taxpayers’ funding to run the jail. I’ve got to look at it from a business perspective that anyway that I can save our taxpayers money, I’m going to do that.” The sheriff says the operation doesn’t require any additional staff to process the inmates who are sent back to their home countries from Springfield. “There’s really no gray area in this. It’s just like a driver’s license. You either have one or you don’t. When you don’t have a driver’s license and we stop you, you have to suffer the repercussions of that. If you’re in this country illegally and you didn’t go through the right process, then you have to go back home,” he said.
November 7, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
epi.org
When federal data is suppressed EPI's @elisegould.bsky.social turns to state-level information for the latest read on jobs. See the latest →
November 6, 2025 at 10:23 PM
benzipperer.org
There's private sector + state-reported data to give us a general idea of the labor market's trajectory ...

But the unemployment rate for Black workers, young people, women, immigrants? There is no replacement for government data.
aaronsojourner.org Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 5d
Every month for the last 77 years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated Americans' unemployment rate

This streak dies tomorrow

Govt staff could not survey Americans about whether they're working or looking for work in Oct, the 1st time in 934 months

This blind spot will remain forever
aaronsojourner.org Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 5d
Here's the planned BLS data release schedule for Nov 2025.

On Tues, it couldn't release Sept job openings, hires, layoffs and firings data.

This morning, it couldn't release 2025Q3 business Productivity and Costs data.

Tomorrow, it can't release Oct 2025 #JobsReport
www.bls.gov/schedule/202...
November 7, 2025 at 2:59 AM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
aaronsojourner.org
Every month for the last 77 years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated Americans' unemployment rate

This streak dies tomorrow

Govt staff could not survey Americans about whether they're working or looking for work in Oct, the 1st time in 934 months

This blind spot will remain forever
aaronsojourner.org Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 5d
Here's the planned BLS data release schedule for Nov 2025.

On Tues, it couldn't release Sept job openings, hires, layoffs and firings data.

This morning, it couldn't release 2025Q3 business Productivity and Costs data.

Tomorrow, it can't release Oct 2025 #JobsReport
www.bls.gov/schedule/202...
November 6, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
kombiz.bsky.social
ICE-loving sheriff loses his election in Bucks County, PA, to a young progressive candidate. Apparently, people really don't like it when their neighbors get kidnapped and disappear. buckscountybeacon.com/2025/11/buck...
Bucks County’s ICE-Loving, MAGA Sheriff Fred Harran Got What He Deserved: A Pink Slip From Voters on Election Night - Bucks County Beacon
Sheriff-elect Danny Ceisler, a 33-year-old Democrat from Bristol Borough, was in many ways the crest of the “Blue Wave” that washed away local Republican office holders.
buckscountybeacon.com
November 5, 2025 at 6:19 PM
benzipperer.org
previous increases in immigration enforcement caused child care centers to simply shut down
screenshot of the highlights and abstract of the article by Umair Ali, Jessica H Brown, and Chris M Herbst titled "Secure communities as immigration enforcement: How secure is the child care market?". Highlights • We study the impact of Secure Communities immigration enforcement on child care • Equilibrium wages and employment in child care fall for both immigrants and natives • Number of child care centers falls, as does children’s participation in care • Effect larger for higher SES children and in areas with more undocumented individuals Abstract Immigrants comprise nearly 20% of the child care workforce in the U.S. This paper studies the impact of a major immigration enforcement policy, Secure Communities (SC), on the structure and functioning of the child care market. Relying on the staggered introduction of SC across counties between 2008 and 2014, we find that the program reduced children’s participation in center-based child care programs. The estimated reductions are substantially larger among advantaged children and in jurisdictions with a greater fraction of undocumented individuals. We also find that SC reduced the equilibrium supply and wages of immigrant and native workers in the center-based sector as well as the number of center-based facilities. There is no compensating increase in the home-based or private household sectors. Our findings suggest that immigrants and natives are likely to be complements in child care service production.
November 5, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
mcpli.bsky.social
The fact that Democrats won both elections yesterday for the Georgia Public Service Commission is remarkable enough (no Democrat had won a non-federal statewide race in GA since 2006).

But both won by a margin of 63% to 37%. In Georgia.

results.sos.ga.gov/results/publ...
November 5, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
taniel.bsky.social
Democrats have flipped 2 seats in the Mississippi senate, and in so doing they've broken the GOP's supermajority in the chamber.
November 5, 2025 at 5:42 AM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
mttwls.bsky.social
Looks like the Dems will pick up 12 seats in the VA House of Delegates, which will go from 51-49 to 63-37 D-R. That's an honestly shocking result.
November 5, 2025 at 1:45 AM
benzipperer.org
Another way the Trump administration has made the government less efficient, raising the cost of living, this time to suck up to corporate parasites like Intuit
jacobbogage.bsky.social Jacob Bogage @jacobbogage.bsky.social · 6d
👀 Scoop: IRS Direct File, the free government-backed program that let you file your taxes for free, is dead.

IRS wrote to state tax agencies saying it would not be operational this coming tax season, per records I've obtained.

IRS Direct File: 2023-2025.

(Story from when the pilot launched.)
IRS tests free e-filing system that could compete with tax-prep giants
The tax agency has quietly built its own prototype system for filing tax returns digitally and free of charge, according to current and former officials.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 4, 2025 at 10:39 PM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
jamieson.bsky.social
Big day at U.S. District Court in D.C. where Sean Dunn, the D.C. Sandwich Guy, is on trial for misdemeanor assault of a federal officer.

Border Patrol agent Gregory Lairmore is on the stand narrating surveillance video of the sammie toss.

'Now he’s struck me with the sandwich,' Lairmore says.
November 4, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
aaronsojourner.org
How does employer access to prisoners’ labor through work release impact the well-being of those workers & of free workers?

New working paper by Sue Helper, Suresh Naidu, Akseli Palomaki, Adam Reich, + me provides evidence, focus on auto manufacturing in AL
#EconSky
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Coercion and Monopsony in Modern American Manufacturing: Evidence from Alabama Prison Labor Susan Helper Suresh Naidu Akseli Palomaki Adam Reich Aaron Sojourner We study coercion and monopsony in contemporary U.S. manufacturing labor markets. We combine administrative data from the Alabama Department of Corrections work release program with a unique survey of workers in the Alabama auto supply chain where workers report their work-release status. We first present descriptive patterns of work-release labor, finding that the use of incarcerated (i.e., work-release) labor is concentrated in the auto supply industry, especially in the Montgomery area, where Hyundai’s assembly plant is located. In the survey, the share of plant-level workers who are incarcerated is negatively correlated with non-incarcerated wages. The survey also enables estimation of hypothetical quit elasticities separately among incarcerated and non-incarcerated workers. Incarcerated workers are estimated to have quit elasticities less than half that of non-incarcerated workers. Because Alabama law requires employers to pay the same wage to incarcerated and non-incarcerated workers in the same jobs, the additional monopsony power introduced by employer access to incarcerated workers creates an incentive and ability for employers to reduce plant-level wages to, and employment of, non-incarcerated workers. We build a quantitative model of firm-specific labor supply that, for incarcerated workers, distinguishes the roles of coercion (the risk of physical harm in prison from not working), wage garnishment that blunts the consumption effect of higher wages, and monopsony (limited mobility across employers). Using it, we estimate effects on free and incarcerated workers’ welfare from i) reforming prison conditions to eliminate violence, ii) eliminating prison labor wage garnishment, iii) imposing a $15 minimum wage, &iv) abolishing prison labor. Free worker welfare goes up in all scenarios...
November 3, 2025 at 2:20 PM
benzipperer.org
good fall day
two kids goofing around in a leaf pile
November 3, 2025 at 12:51 AM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
jessicacalarco.com
We have progressed from data collection to data analysis.
My 11-year-old sitting with her pile of Halloween candy, sorting it into a bar graph
November 1, 2025 at 12:31 AM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
bbkogan.bsky.social
Lots of wrong information coming from the Trump administration on SNAP "running out of money November 1" and the SNAP contingency fund.

The truth is:
1) It *can* be used to cover SNAP benefits during a shutdown.
2) It actually *must* be used to cover SNAP benefits during a shutdown.

Let's dig in.
October 31, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
sarahlazare.bsky.social
I can confirm that Willian Giménez González, beloved day laborer leader and advocate for his fellow workers, has been freed from ICE detention and is back in Chicago! For those interested in supporting him and his family, here is a GoFundMe.
Donate to Support William and His Family After Unjust ICE Arrest, organized by National Day Laborer Organizing Network
On September 12, ICE agents unjustly abducted day laborer Wil… National Day Laborer Organizing Network needs your support for Support William and His Family After Unjust ICE Arrest
www.gofundme.com
October 30, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
adamserwer.bsky.social
Diversity doesn’t weaken unions. Racist bosses like Vance using racism to divide workers by race so they can exploit them weakens unions. All this stuff is arsonists complaining about the temperature in the building they set on fire. bsky.app/profile/diew...
dieworkwear.bsky.social derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 12d
JD Vance claims that diversity weakens unions, as people end up distrusting each other and not organizing.

Let me tell you two menswear stories related to this claim. 🧵
October 30, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
epi.org
AL, AR, & MS have no state agencies to enforce nondiscrimination laws. As Trump dismantles the federal agencies that enforce nondiscrimination laws, workers in these states are at serious risk.
Workplace nondiscrimination protections: State solutions to the U.S. worker rights crisis
What does current federal law say about workplace nondiscrimination protections? Discrimination in the workplace—either in employment, promotion, job assignments, pay, benefits, discipline, discharge,...
www.epi.org
October 30, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
andreapitzer.bsky.social
A thought I never expected to have: House of Windsor currently beating the US government on transparency and accountability.
phillewis.bsky.social Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 11d
LONDON (AP) — Buckingham Palace says King Charles III will strip Prince Andrew of remaining titles and evict him from royal residence.
October 30, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Reposted by Ben Zipperer
jedkolko.bsky.social
Thanks to the shutdown, we didn't get the first estimate of Q3 GDP today. And private-sector data offer no good substitute for official GDP.

The shutdown offers lots of lessons about what private sector data can and can't do.

New at @piie.com : www.piie.com/blogs/realti...
What the government shutdown teaches us about private sector data
The government shutdown provides an unexpected test case for an increasingly urgent question: What would happen if official economic statistics became less useful, whether through declining resources,...
www.piie.com
October 30, 2025 at 6:09 PM