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- Hospitals, Chronic Disease -- statistics & numerical data -- Ohio -- Cleveland (x)
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Show moreA frequently mentioned issue in the welfare reform debate is whether there is spatial dislocation between the residential locations of welfare recipients and areas of job growth. Many have hypothesized that distances to suitable and sufficient employment opportunities, coupled with heavy reliance on public transit may pose a significant barrier to welfare recipients attempting to make the transition to full-time permanent employment. In previous Briefing Reports we have examined a number of aspects of this issue. In Briefing Report 9907, we found that welfare exiters living in the City of Cleveland do rely disproportionately on suburban employment. In Briefing Report 9908, we find some evidence consistent with the view that longer commutes lead to worsened labor market outcomes for those just leaving welfare for work. For individuals facing a difficult or impossible commute, a number of potential (if costly) solutions exist. One option is to change jobs to reduce commute length. A second option is to switch to a faster commute mode (for example, switching from public transit to private automobile if possible). A third option is to change residential locations. In this report, we investigate the extent to which individuals pursue this latter option as a means of possibly overcoming barriers to work. Of course, residential moves are both expensive, and dependent on finding new housing that is both affordable and provides reasonable access to work. As we have shown elsewhere, housing in the Cleveland area which is proximate to areas of high job growth (primarily suburban) is seldom affordable.1 Furthermore, African-Americans may face significant racial discrimination (implicit or explicit) in trying to move out of city neighborhoods to those that are more proximate to high job growth areas. Nevertheless, we believe that is important to examine the possible role of residential moves as background to understanding how those leaving welfare for work cope with spatial barriers.
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Show moreOne primary goal of welfare reform is to move welfare recipients from reliance on cash assistance to reliance on paychecks. In metropolitan areas around the country, this new set of policies will entail the entrance of a large number of individuals into the labor force. Many of these individuals have limited previous work experience, education and skill levels. A question central to the success of this endeavor is whether local labor markets have sufficient skill-appropriate job openings to absorb the new influx of workers. This issue is particularly pressing because of the nature in which welfare time limits are being implemented. On the date on which time limits are first binding, large numbers of individuals will be simultaneously eliminated from the welfare rolls. To facilitate the shift, policy makers may need to dramatically increase the scale of job search assistance, training, and possibly public employment provision. Local labor markets may exhibit either short or long-run unemployment. The discussion of welfare reform and labor markets is focussed at the local level because low-wage workers would not be expected to or have the means to conduct a state-wide or national job search. In order to assess the ability of local markets to absorb these new workers, estimates of the number of expected job openings are needed which can then be compared with the expected number of new labor market entrants. Because the labor market has an important spatial element to it – jobs must be located a reasonable commute distance from the workers who fill them – it is also important that these estimates incorporate a level of geographic detail. Furthermore, because former welfare recipients generally enter relatively low-skill jobs, these estimates must be specific to job skill level as well. In this Briefing Report, we discuss one such set of estimates constructed by the Poverty Center. These are estimates of the number of expected annual low-skill job openings by zip code for the 174 zip codes in the eight-county Cleveland-Akron metropolitan area. We provide an overview of the methodology used to construct these estimates, a summary of the findings and a supplemental appendix table showing all estimates at the zip code level for the area. In work published elsewhere, we use job openings like the ones discussed here to assess the ability of the labor market to adjust to the new conditions under welfare reform.
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