Aaron Sojourner

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Aaron Sojourner
Born	about 1972
Academic background
Alma mater	Yale University (BA) University of Chicago (MPP) Northwestern University (PhD)

Aaron Sojourner is an American economist and senior researcher at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. ^[1] He was formerly an associate professor of economics at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management ^[2] and senior economist for the Council of Economic Advisers. ^[3] His work has been widely covered by the media, particularly on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labor market in the United States. ^{[4] [5] [6] [7]}

Biography

Sojourner was raised largely in Washington, DC by parents active in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement who had recently changed their names to "Sojourner" in honor of Sojourner Truth. ^{[8] [9]} He is a graduate of Yale University, the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy, and Northwestern University. ^[10]

Research

Sojourner's research has focused on labor market institutions, particularly labor unions, hiring in the education sector, ^[11] and consumer financial decisions. ^[10] During the COVID-19 pandemic, he wrote widely cited forecasts of new unemployment insurance claims based on analyses of Google Trends data, ^[12] analyses of how the pandemic would reduce childcare access, a study of screening practices in the workplace, and research on work on which employees advocate for workplace safety practices to protect themselves. ^{[13] [4]}

Sojourner's 2020 paper "Physician–patient racial concordance" was debunked in 2024. ^{[14] [15]}

Selected works

• Duncan, Greg J., and Aaron J. Sojourner. "Can intensive early childhood intervention programs eliminate income-based cognitive and achievement gaps?." Journal of Human Resources 48, no. 4 (2013): 945–968.
• Goda, Gopi Shah, Colleen Flaherty Manchester, and Aaron J. Sojourner. "What will my account really be worth? Experimental evidence on how retirement income projections affect saving." Journal of Public Economics 119 (2014): 80–92.
• Sojourner, Aaron J., Elton Mykerezi, and Kristine L. West. "Teacher pay reform and productivity panel data evidence from adoptions of Q-Comp in Minnesota." Journal of Human Resources 49, no. 4 (2014): 945–981.
• Sojourner, Aaron J., Brigham R. Frandsen, Robert J. Town, David C. Grabowski, and Min M. Chen. "Impacts of unionization on quality and productivity: Regression discontinuity evidence from nursing homes." ILR Review 68, no. 4 (2015): 771–806.
• Sojourner, Aaron J. "Do unions promote members' electoral office holding? Evidence from correlates of state legislatures' occupational shares." ILR Review 66, no. 2 (2013): 467–486.
• Greenwood, Brad N., Rachel R. Hardeman, Laura Huang, and Aaron Sojourner. "Physician–patient racial concordance and disparities in birthing mortality for newborns." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 35 (2020): 21194–21200.

References

1. "Aaron Sojourner joins Upjohn Institute research team | News | Upjohn Institute". www.upjohn.org. Retrieved 2022-06-13.
2. "Aaron Sojourner". Carlson School of Management. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
3. https://carlsonschool.umn.edu/news/aaron-sojourner-appointed-us-president%E2%80%99s-council-economic-advisers
4. "Real-Time Scholarship". Carlson School of Management. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
5. Rosenberg, Eli. "Six months, and a grim milestone: 26th-straight week of record-level unemployment claims". Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2020-11-22.
6. "Minnesota's head of employment answers your unemployment questions". MPR News. 2 April 2020. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
7. "Minnesota prods companies to share jobs rather than lay off workers". Star Tribune. 7 September 2020. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
8. "Collection: Henry and Sue [Lorenzi] Sojourner Civil Rights Movement Collection | University of Southern Mississippi McCain Library & Archives". specialcollections.usm.edu. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
9. "Tweet by Aaron Sojourner: Fun to see a shout-out to my mom & her "liberation name" in today's @nytimes about new @Primary_Info reprint. To fight patriarchy & inspired by abolitionist & feminist Sojourner Truth's example, my parents changed their last names just before my birth". Twitter. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
10. "Aaron Sojourner IZA - Institute of Labor Economics". www.iza.org. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
11. Mahamud, Faiza; Tribune, MaryJo Webster • Star (3 December 2018). "Minnesota schools struggle with widening racial gap between students and teachers". Star Tribune. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
12. Bui, Quoctrung (2020-04-01). "Jobless Claims Hit 3.3 Million in the Last Report. This Week's Will Probably Be Worse". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-11-22.
13. Sojourner, Aaron (2 September 2020). "Unionized workers are more likely to assert their right to a safe and healthy workplace". The Conversation. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
14. Physician–patient racial concordance and newborn mortality. George J. Borjas & Robert VerBruggen, September 16, 2024, https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2409264121
15. "The data hinted at racism among white doctors. Then scholars looked again". The Economist . 27 October 2024. Retrieved 20 May 2025. Although the authors of the original 2020 study had controlled for various factors, they had not included very low birth weight (ie, babies born weighing less than 1,500 grams, who account for about half of infant mortality). Once this was also taken into consideration, there was no measurable difference in outcomes