What Do Worker Flows Say about the Wage Gains from Unemployment Insurance?

How large are the effects of unemployment insurance on re-employment wages? Search theory holds that UI increases accepted wages by making workers more selective about the jobs they accept. We show that the standard search model puts strong testable restrictions on the magnitude of this selectivity effect, given observed worker flows. A simple formula links the effect of UI on wages to its effect on job-finding hazard and to the size of frictional wage dispersion. Given the model-implied magnitude of the latter, the implied wage gain from UI cannot be very large. Our own empirical analysis using SIPP shows that, for high-wealth workers, the effects of UI on both duration and wages are close to zero, consistent with the model’s predictions. However, for liquidity- constrained workers, the estimated wage effect of UI is substantially larger than what a standard search model implies given its estimated effect on the job-finding hazard. We conclude that large estimated wage gains from UI are likely not due to selectivity alone.