Why Are Blacks More Likely to Be Unemployed Than Are Whites?

One of the most unpleasant issues in the study of discrimination is accounting for why blacks are more likely to be unemployed than whites. Human capital differences were once an important explanation of why blacks were less likely to be employed than whites. The spatial mismatch hypothesis has been the subject of extended controversy ever since it was first proposed in the mid–1960s. Discrimination is a relatively appealing theory because, unlike the other models, there is very little negative evidence disconfirming it; unfortunately, there is also very little positive evidence confirming it. The race of the labor force able to reach suburban and urban jobs was practically the same. The majority of blacks in both cities have cars. In the Urban Institute Study, in the cases where blacks and whites received different treatment, meaning one of them was hired, the white candidates were three times more likely to be hired than were the black candidates.