from the Kansas Fed
— this post authored by Kelly D. Edmiston
Although the U.S. labor market has seen strong growth in recent years, labor market conditions have been weaker in low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities. In particular, residents in LMI communities are much less likely to work than residents in higher-income (non-LMI) communities. As of 2017, 35 percent of residents in LMI communities age 18-64 were not working compared with 24.9 percent in non-LMI communities.
In this article, I use a formal text analysis of a unique set of survey comments to examine prominent obstacles to working, and compare the prevalence of these obstacles, or “employment barriers,” in LMI and nonLMI communities. I find that lower educational attainment and lack of access to transportation and childcare are among the most prominent barriers to employment, and these problems are especially prevalent in LMI communities. Although public assistance, disabilities, and chronic health conditions are considerably more prevalent in LMI communities, they are not especially prominent barriers in the text analysis
Section I documents the difference in employment rates between LMI and non-LMI communities, showing persistent gaps that are increasing over time. Section II conducts a formal text analysis of survey comments to identify the most prominent barriers to employment. Section III compares statistics on the prevalence of these employment barriers and finds that barriers to work are much more prevalent in LMI communities than non-LMI communities.
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Source
https://www.kansascityfed.org/~/media/files/ publicat/econrev/econrevarchive/2019/ 4q19edmiston.pdf
