Job Access, Commute and Travel Burden among Welfare Recipients

Summary. Welfare recip ients face a number of obstacles to making the transition from welfare to work. One is their geographical separation from employment opportunities: many welfare recip ients live in `job-poor ’ neighbourhoods far from employment for which they are quali ® ed. Combining administrativ e data on welfare recip ien ts and employm ent in Los Angeles with data from the 1990 decennial census, we show that greater access to local jobs in low-wage ® rms increases the likelihood that welfare recip ients ® nd employm ent in neighbourhood jobs. More-over, welfare recip ients who have long commutes earn less than those who ® nd work closer to home, contrary to the pattern for most workers. These ® ndings demonstrate that proxim ity to low-wage jobs bene ® ts welfare recip ients through reduced commuting expenses and increased earnings. In recent years, the goal of US welfare policy has shifted from one of income support to one of economic self-suf ® ciency; to accomplish this objective, current federal welfare programmes have been restructured to move welfare recipients from welfare to work within a ® xed period of time. In this context, numerous studies have examined the supply-side determinants of welfare usage, the characteristics of recipients that in ¯ uence welfare participation. Much less is known, however, about the barriers recipients face in ® nding and maintaining employment. A number of scholars assert that, among other obstacles to employment, welfare recipients face a spatial separation from jobs (Oster