Are All Low-Wage Workers Alike? Heterogeneity in the Post-Pandemic U.S. Labor Market

This paper analyzes heterogeneity in post-pandemic labor market adjustment across industries, contrasting healthcare and social assistance with leisure and hospitality. Using CPS monthly microdata (2015–2023), JOLTS separations, and LEHD Job-to-Job flows, we estimate sector-specific wage-separation elasticities, demographic-group-specific wage Phillips curves and link labor market tightness to wage growth and employer-to-employer mobility. Both sectors experienced significant increases in quit rates after 2020, however, the underlying drivers are markedly different. Leisure and hospitality workers showed substantial upward mobility across industry wage-premium quartiles and frequent exits to other sectors, consistent with improved outside options in a tight labor market. Conversely, healthcare and social assistance workers displayed limited outward mobility, higher rates of within-industry job downgrades, and separation elasticities that weakened further after Covid-19. These dynamics align with well-documented structural features of care industries—credential-based occupational closure, a disproportionately female and older workforce, and pandemic-induced deterioration in working conditions. Our findings suggest that wage compression disproportionately benefited mobile male workers in low-wage jobs outside the care sector, while quits in healthcare reflect non-wage factors and degraded working conditions.