Displaced workers suffer persistent earnings losses. This stark finding has been established by
following workers in administrative data after mass layoffs under the presumption that these are
involuntary job losses owing to economic distress. Using linked survey and administrative data,
this paper examines this presumption by matching worker-supplied reasons for separations with
what is happening at the firm. The paper documents substantially different earnings dynamics
in mass layoffs depending on the reason the worker gives for the separation. Using a new methodology
for accounting for the increase in the probability of separation among all types of survey
response during in a mass layoff, the paper finds earnings loss estimates that are surprisingly
close to those using only administrative data. Finally, the survey-administrative link allows the
decomposition of earnings losses due to subsequent nonemployment into non-participation and
unemployment. Including the zero earnings of those identified as being unemployed substantially
increases the estimate of earnings losses.