New ISER research looks at short-term impact of PFD on Alaska's labor market

An increase of $1,000 in the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) affects women in the labor market differently than men, with women working fewer hours and men having increased employment opportunities in the three months after the PFD is distributed. The differing responses, however, nearly balance each other out with a relatively small decline in the number of hours worked on an annual basis, according to a new paper by ISER's Andrew Bibler, Mouhcine Guettabi, and Matthew Reimer.

Using data from the Current Population Survey and Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend from 1994-2017, Bibler, Guettabi, and Reimer estimate that a $1,000 increase in the PFD leads to about a one-hour a week reduction in hours among employed women in the three months after the PFD is received. This is mostly seen in younger women, lower wage earners, and those with young children. While women may work less, they remain employed at a constant rate.

The authors find no significant change in the number of hours employed men work, however, the percentage of men employed increases in the three months following the PFD.

The increase in men working is consistent with the demand for workers following a hefty infusion of cash into the economy over a relatively short period of time. The authors calculate that an additional $1,000 PFD results in close to 3,000 additional jobs in the three months following the PFD.

The authors of "Short-term Labor Responses to Unconditional Cash Transfers," find that during the three months after the PFD lands in people's bank accounts the gains in male employment are not enough to offset the loss of women's hours worked. The result is a 0.7 percent decline in hours worked in the months immediately after the PFD; annually this decline lessens to less than 0.2 percent, a relatively small number.

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