Employment location and wage rates of poverty-area residents

This paper tests a crucial assumption in the debate between those who advocate ghetto development and those who advocate ghetto dispersal: that the suburban jobs held by urban poverty-area residents are economically superior to the jobs held by those who both live and work in the poverty area. The motivations of poverty-area residents for commuting to a suburban job are analyzed and tested using microeconomic data from the 1970 Census Employment Survey. The analysis finds no empirical support for the hypothesis and implied policies that suburban jobs provide superior pecuniary advantages for poverty-area residents.