We present new evidence on the evolution of black–white earnings differences among all men, including both workers and nonworkers. We study two measures: (i) the level earnings gap—the racial earnings difference at a given quantile; and (ii) the earnings rank gap—the difference between a black man's percentile in the black earnings distribution and the position he would hold in the white earnings distribution. After narrowing from 1940 to the mid-1970s, the median black–white level earnings gap has since grown as large as it was in 1950. At the same time, the median black man's relative position in the earnings distribution has remained essentially constant since 1940, so that the improvement then worsening of median relative earnings have come mainly from the stretching and narrowing of the overall earnings distribution. Black men at higher percentiles have experienced significant advances in relative earnings since 1940, due mainly to strong positional gains among those with college educations. Large relative schooling gains by blacks at the median and below have been more than counteracted by rising return to skill in the labor market, which has increasingly penalized remaining racial differences in schooling at the bottom of the distribution.

Exploiting county-level variation in oil-producing areas from shocks to world oil and gas prices, we study how local labor market conditions affect disability take-up. We extend well-known previous work using a similar research design by analyzing a different price shock; a larger, more representative set of labor markets; and a more recent period marked by skyrocketing disability payments. Our estimated elasticity for SSDI payments with respect to earnings of −0.29 is surprisingly similar to earlier findings. Our preferred SSI elasticity estimate of −0.16 is smaller than previous findings, but we show that SSI programmatic changes explain most of the difference.

We study how the recent housing boom and bust affected college enrollment during the 2000s. We exploit cross-city variation in local housing booms, which improved labor market opportunities for young men and women. We find that the boom lowered college enrollment, with effects concentrated at two-year colleges. The decline in enrollment during the boom was generally reversed during the bust; however, attainment remains persistently low for particular cohorts, suggesting that reduced educational attainment is an enduring effect of the recent housing cycle. The housing boom can account for approximately 25 percent of the recent slowdown in college attainment.