Employment and Labor Markets

Extending the 10-year budget projections it published on January 17, 2025, CBO projects that federal debt held by the public, boosted by sustained deficits, will grow far beyond any previously recorded level over the next 30 years.

CBO examines trends in revenues and outlays associated with unemployment insurance and provides information about how CBO treats that program in its baseline projections and cost estimates.

CBO periodically issues a compendium of policy options and their estimated effects on the federal budget. This report presents 76 options for altering spending or revenues to reduce federal budget deficits over the next decade.

CBO describes economic outcomes of veterans who are Black, male, and working age and whose service began during or after 1990. CBO compares the outcomes of that group with outcomes of Black nonveterans and White veterans from 2017 to 2019.

Compared with private-sector employees, the average compensation costs for federal employees in 2022 were greater among workers whose education culminated in a bachelor’s degree or less, but lower among workers with more education.

This interactive tool, updated in January 30, 2024, allows users to explore how various policies to increase the federal minimum wage would affect earnings, employment, family income, and poverty.

CBO compared the earnings, personal income, and household income of working-age male veterans who received disability payments from the Department of Veterans Affairs with those of veterans who did not receive such payments.

CBO issues a volume that contains short descriptions of 59 policy options that would each reduce the federal budget deficit by less than $300 billion over the next 10 years.

CBO analyzes the effects of work requirements and work supports on employment and income of participants in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and Medicaid.

If the Raise the Wage Act of 2021 was enacted in March 2021, the cumulative budget deficit over the 2021–2031 period would increase by $54 billion.

In 2018, 46 million people living in the United States—or 14 percent of the population—had been born in other countries. CBO examines the employment and earnings of men and women by their legal immigration status, level of education, and birthplace.

From 1995 to 2018, the share of people ages 55 to 79 who were employed increased from 33 percent to 44 percent. CBO examines the changing demographic characteristics of older people and the effects several factors may have on their rate of employment.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour for most workers. In this report, CBO examines how increasing the federal minimum wage to $10, $12, or $15 per hour by 2025 would affect employment and family income.