The comparison of a white felon with black
and Latino applicants with clean backgrounds
provides a vivid calibration of the effects of
race on hiring decisions. While ex-offenders
are disadvantaged in the labor market relative
to applicants with no criminal background, the
stigma of a felony conviction appears to be no
greater than that of minority status. Replicating
earlier results from Milwaukee (Pager 2003),
these findings suggest that New York employ
ers view minority applicants as essentially
equivalent to whites just out of prison.
Theories of statistical discrimination point
to the very high incarceration rates among
young black men as a key explanation for
employers’ indifference between white felons
and blacks with potentially unobserved criminal
histories. Current estimates suggest that
roughly 18 percent of young black men with
high school degrees will experience incarceration
by their early 30s (Pettit and Western 2004),
and a larger fraction surely have lower level
convictions and arrests. Still, the fact that known
information about a white applicant’s serious
criminal conviction is viewed with no more
concern than the assumed characteristics of a
young black man points to the strength and
intensity of contemporary racial attitudes.
Overcoming these negative expectations, even
for a candidate with otherwise appealing characteristics,
requires the negotiation of a number
of significant hurdles not present for white job
seekers
