Identifying Opportunity Occupations in the Nation’s Largest Metropolitan Economies

In this joint report from the Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Atlanta Federal Reserve Banks, researchers investigate the extent to which the U.S. economy offers decent-paying jobs to workers without a four-year college degree. They define an “opportunity occupation” as one that is generally considered accessible to someone without a bachelor’s degree and that pays at least the national annual median wage, adjusted for differences in local consumption prices.
Focusing on the 100 largest metropolitan areas and using measures that reflect both the typical education needed to enter an occupation and the requisite education suggested by incumbent workers and occupational experts, they find that 27.4 percent of employment could be found in opportunity occupations in 2014. This estimate falls by more than seven percentage points—to 20.3 percent—when they predicate job accessibility on the educational attainment requested by employers in online job ads.
The availability of opportunity-rich work for those without a bachelor’s degree varies dramatically across the metropolitan areas in their study, ranging from 36.6 percent to well under half that level. The educational preferences of employers as expressed in online job ads introduce a potentially significant barrier to economic self-sufficiency for those without a four-year degree, lowering the share of opportunity occupations by more than 10 percentage points in some metro areas.
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04.14.21
Understanding Financial Health: Race and the Financial Lives of Young Adults and Students
For National Financial Literacy Month, our April FedTalk will be a discussion with public policy and education experts about race and the financial lives of students and young adults.
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05.25.21
COVID-19 and Supply Chains: A Year of Evolving Disruption
The May FedTalk will feature the work of Julianne Dunn, as well as a panel of experts, who will discuss the evolution of supply chain disruptions since the beginning of the pandemic.
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06.23.21
Policy Summit 2021: Pathways to Economic Resilience in Our Communities
Offering the latest research on and best practices for promoting the economic mobility and resilience of low- and moderate-income individuals, families, and communities.
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11.17.21
2021 Financial Stability Conference: Planning for Surprises, Learning from Crises
The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and the Office of Financial Research will host their annual financial stability conference, Financial Stability: Planning for Surprises, Learning from Crises, which will be held virtually on November 17-19, 2021.