Research

My core research agenda focuses on changes in wage-setting institutions in the advanced democracies. I
am primarily interested in who gets paid what and why - and how this varies across time and place. In my
work I concentrate on major developments that have disrupted past practices of wage-setting, including labor union decline and the resulting changes in the ways firms allocate wages.

Books

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2021. You’re Paid What You’re Worth and Other Myths of the Modern Economy. Harvard University Press.
*Featured in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, and ProMarket
*Selected media coverage: the New York Times' DealBook

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2014. What Unions No Longer Do. Harvard University Press.
*Selected media coverage: The New Yorker, the New York Times, MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal, Talking Points Memo, The Daily Beast, the Nation
*Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2014

Journal articles

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2019. "U.S. Labor Studies in the 21st Century: Understanding ‘Laborism’ Without Labor." Annual Review of Sociology 45: 449-465.
*Media coverage: Last Week Tonight with J0hn Oliver

Rosenfeld, Jake, and Patrick Denice. 2019. "What Do Government Unions Do? Public Sector Unions and Nonunion Wages, 1977-2015." Social Science Research 78: 41-56.

Denice, Patrick, and Jake Rosenfeld. 2018. "Unions and Nonunion Pay in the U.S., 1977-2015." Sociological Science 5: 541-561.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2017. "Don't Ask or Tell: Pay Secrecy Policies in U.S. Workplaces." Social Science Research 65: 1-16.
*Media coverage: Boston Globe

Rosenfeld, Jake, and Patrick Denice. 2015. "The Power of Transparency: Evidence from a British Workplace Survey." American Sociological Review 80: 1045-1068.
*Media coverage: New York Times

Rosenfeld, Jake, and Meredith Kleykamp. 2013. "Reply to Catron: Immigration, Organization, and the Great Recession: Structural Change or Continuity?" American Sociological Review 78: 333-338.

Rosenfeld, Jake, and Meredith Kleykamp. 2012. "Organized Labor and Racial Wage Inequality in the United States." American Journal of Sociology 117: 1460-1502.
*Media coverage: Los Angeles Times
*Cited in the 2022 Economic Report of the President
*Winner of the 2013 Distinguished Scholarly Article Award from the Labor and Labor Movements section of the ASA

Western, Bruce, and Jake Rosenfeld. 2011. "Unions, Norms, and the Rise in American Earnings Inequality." American Sociological Review 76: 513-37.
*Media coverage: Washington Post, New York Times, New York Times’ Economix Blog, the Economist
*Honorable mention of the 2012 Outstanding Article Award from the Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility section of the ASA
*Reprinted in David Grusky (ed.). 2014. Social Stratification: Class, Race, and Gender in Sociological Perspective, 4th Edition. Westview Press.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2010. "Economic Determinants of Voting in an Era of Union Decline." Social Science Quarterly 91: 379-98.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2010. "The ‘Meaning of Poverty’ and Contemporary Quantitative Poverty Research." British Journal of Sociology 61: 103-10.

Rosenfeld, Jake and Meredith Kleykamp. 2009. "Hispanics and Organized Labor in the United States, 1973-2007." American Sociological Review 74(6):916-37.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2006. "Desperate Measures: Strikes and Wages in Post-Accord America." Social Forces 85: 235-265.
*Winner of the 2006 James D. Thompson Award from the Organizations, Occupations, and Work section of the ASA

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2006. "Widening the Gap: The Effect of Declining Unionization on Managerial and Worker Pay, 1983-2000." Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 24: 223-38.

Western, Bruce, Meredith Kleykamp and Jake Rosenfeld. 2006. "Did Falling Wages and Employment Increase U.S. Imprisonment?" Social Forces 84: 2291-2311.

Policy reports

Marinescu, Ioana, and Jake Rosenfeld. 2022.  "Worker Power and Economic Mobility." WorkRise Research Report, Urban Institute. July.

Sun, Shengwei, Jake Rosenfeld, and Patrick Denice. 2021.  "On the Books, Off the Record: Examining the Effectiveness of Pay Secrecy Laws in the U.S." Institute for Women's Policy Research Policy Brief #C494. January.

Rosenfeld, Jake, Patrick Denice, and Jennifer Laird. 2016.  “Union Decline Lowers Wages of Nonunion Workers.” Economic Policy Institute Report.
*Selected media coverage: New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, The Week
*Discussed by Vice President Joe Biden on September 1, 2016

Reviews and book chapters

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2021. "Majority-Minority Myths." Dissent. Spring: 137-142.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2020. "The Consequences of Union Decline." Pp. 12-22 in Richard Bales and Charlotte Garden (eds.) Reviving American Labor: Labor Law for a Twenty-First Century Economy. Cambridge University Press.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2019. Review of Alexander Hertel-Fernandez’s Politics at Work: How Companies Turn Workers into Lobbyists. ILR Review 72: 514-515.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2017. “Unequal Pay, Unequal Work.” Dissent. Winter: 41-45.

Rosenfeld, Jake, and Jennifer Laird. 2016. "Unions and Poverty." Ch. 35 in David Brady and Linda Burton (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Poverty and Society. Oxford University Press.

Rosenfeld, Sam, and Jake Rosenfeld. Summer 2015. "Should Liberals Back Public Employee Unions?" The American Prospect 26: 87-89.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2015. Review of Kathleen Thelen’s Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of
Social Solidarity. Perspectives on Politics 13: 157-58.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2012. Review of Edward S. Greenberg, Leon Grunberg, Sarah Moore, and Patricia B. Sikora’s Turbulence: Boeing and the State of American Workers and Managers. Contemporary Sociology 41: 341-43.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2010. "Little Labor: How Union Decline is Changing the American Landscape." Invited submission for Pathways: A Magazine on Poverty, Inequality, and Social Policy.

*Reprinted in David Grusky (ed.). 2014. Social Stratification: Class, Race, and Gender in Sociological Perspective, 4th Edition. Westview Press, and in David Grusky and Szonja Szelenyi (eds.). 2011. The Inequality Reader: Contemporary and Foundational Readings in Race, Class, and Gender, 2nd Edition. Westview Press.

Kleykamp, Meredith, Jake Rosenfeld, and Roseanne Scotti. 2008. "Wasting Money, Wasting Lives: Calculating the Hidden Costs of Incarceration in New Jersey." Report commissioned for the Drug Policy Alliance.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2006. Review of David Stoesz’s Quixote’s Ghost: The Right, the Liberati, and the Future of Social Policy. Contemporary Sociology 35: 404-05.

Western, Bruce, Meredith Kleykamp and Jake Rosenfeld. 2004. "Crime, Punishment, and American Inequality." In Kathryn M. Neckerman (ed.) Social Inequality. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Selected other writing

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2021.  "Solidarity Strikes Back!"  Milken Institute Review. Fourth Quarter: 36-45.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2021. “Paying Workers Based on Performance is Harder Than It Looks.” The Wall Street Journal, March 17.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2021. "Five Myths About Compensation."  Washington Post, March 14, 2021, p. B3.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2021. "You're Not Paid Based On Your Performance."  Harvard Business Review, February 23, 2021.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2020. "There's Still a Taboo on Discussing Salaries. But Millennials are Breaking It," Washington Post, September 6.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2020. "Welcome to the Jungle, Again," The American Prospect, May 17.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2018.  "The Meaning of Labor's Win in Missouri," The American Prospect, August 13.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2017. "The Democrats: Unmoored, and Unable to Compete," OnLabor, October 24.

Rosenfeld, Jake, and Patrick Denice. 2017. "The Union Household Vote Revisited," OnLabor, April 11.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2016. "Labor and Politics: Learning the Right Lessons from 2016," OnLabor, November 23.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2016. "Salary Transparency Is Key to Narrowing Gender Pay Disparities," The New York Times' Room for Debate, August 15.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2015. “Wealth Inequality and the Labor Movement: What’s the Connection?” OnLabor, December 7.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2014. "The Importance of Public Sector Unions," OnLabor, July 14.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2014. "The Supreme Court Did Not Just Kill Public Sector Unions," Politico Magazine, June 30.

Rosenfeld, Jake. 2014. "The Decline of Labor Unions and the Rise of the Minimum Wage," Seattle Times, April 19.

Kleykamp, Meredith, and Jake Rosenfeld. 2013. "Lost Unions and Lost Ground," Los Angeles Times, September 9.

Western, Bruce, and Jake Rosenfeld. 2012. "Workers of the World Divide: The Decline of Labor and the Future of the Middle Class," Foreign Affairs 91: 88-99.

Work in progress

Denice, Patrick, Jake Rosenfeld, and Shengwei Sun. “Show Me The Money! The Salary Taboo in the Contemporary Workplace.” (Under review)

Laird, Jennifer, and Jake Rosenfeld. “Public Sector Unions Post-Janus.” (In progress)

Rosenfeld, Jake, Shengwei Sun, and Patrick Denice. “Pay Transparency and Gender Pay Gaps: What’s the Connection?” (In progress)

Oswalt, Michael, Jake Rosenfeld, and Michael Oswalt. “Worklaw in the Shadow of Employer Power: The Case of Pay Secrecy.” (In progress)