The Working Poor & New Entrants project is an analysis of the working poor population in fifteen metropolitan areas across the United States between the years of 1990 to 2005. It explores the commonalities and diversity of the various populations, examines the geographical distribution of the working poor communities within a metropolitan area, and seeks to identify the predicting factors that make an individual more likely to be working poor using statistical regression models.
The scope of the project will result in a report that explores the paradox of working poverty across fifteen metropolitan areas in the United States in recent years. A closer examination will be made of the immigrant and African American working poor – two groups that comprise a substantial share of all working poor populations in our selected regions. We look at trends among immigrant and African American groups individually and also in the context of their region because we believe that studying working poverty through both lenses is integral for thinking through solutions to the problem. Our logistic regressions analysis will highlight how the determinants of working poverty vary significantly from region to region.
The findings from the project will guide policy recommendations for job training, service delivery, and future research on working poverty. This project has received modest funding from the Ford Foundation via a subcontract from UCLA.
Presentations
Doing Everything Right, Still Getting It Wrong: The Evolution and Composition of the Working Poor in Fifteen U.S. Metropolitan Areas, 1990-2005
Manuel Pastor and Jennifer Tran
2/17/09
