RACE AT WORK: Realities of Race And Criminal Record In the Job Market

The Commission produced a brief preliminary report entitled Race At Work: Realities of Race and Criminal Record in the NYC Job Market. This report summarizes a study of the impact of race, ethnicity and criminal records on securing entry-level positions conducted by Princeton University Professors Dr. Devah Pager and Dr. Bruce Western with assistance from the Commission and funding from the JEHT Foundation. Using matched pairs of testers (whites and African-Americans or Latinos) applying for the same jobs with the same resumes, the investigators tracked call-backs, interviews, and job offers. The study revealed that young white high school graduates were twice as likely to be hired as their black counterparts. The Latino testers fared better than blacks in securing low-wage positions. The study also revealed that young black men with no criminal records fared no better than young white men with a criminal records when landing an entry-level position.

The Commission issued this report at a conference commemorating its 50th Anniversary as an official City agency at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem on December 9, 2005.