“Ban-the-Box” (BTB) policies restrict employers from asking about applicants’ criminal histories on job applications and are often presented as a means of reducing unemployment among black men, who disproportionately have criminal records. However, withholding information about criminal records could risk encouraging racial discrimination: employers may make assumptions about criminality based on the applicant's race. To investigate BTB’s effects, we sent approximately 15,000 online job applications on behalf of fictitious young male applicants to employers in New Jersey and New York City…
Brief
This brief contributes to our knowledge of the challenges faced by children with incarcerated fathers by examining the effect of paternal incarceration on child homelessness. Specifically, it explores three mechanisms by which father incarceration may lead to child homelessness, including weakening family finances, limiting children's access to institutional and informal supports, and reducing mothers' capacities and capabilities. It also examines the extent to which this relationship is concentrated among black children and tests concerns of spuriousness, the possibility that both…
In this paper, we document the continuing decline in employment and labor force participation of black men between the ages of 16 and 34 who have a high school education or less. We explore the extent to which these trends can be accounted for in recent years by two fairly new developments: (1) the dramatic growth in the number of young black men who have been incarcerated and (2) strengthened enforcement of child support policies. We use micro-level data from the Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Groups, along with state-level data over time on incarceration rates and child…
