Ex-Prisoners Face Headwinds as Job Seekers, Even as Openings Abound
The New York Times, July 6, 2023: Ex-Prisoners Face Headwinds as Job Seekers, Even as Openings Abound
“The U.S. unemployment rate is hovering near lows unseen since the 1960s. A few months ago, there were roughly two job openings for every unemployed person in the country. Many standard economic models suggest that almost everyone who wants a job has a job.
“Yet the broad group of Americans with records of imprisonment or arrests — a population disproportionately male and Black — have remarkably high jobless rates. Over 60 percent of those leaving prison are unemployed a year later, seeking work but not finding it.
“That harsh reality has endured even as the social upheaval after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 gave a boost to a ‘second-chance hiring’ movement in corporate America aimed at hiring candidates with criminal records. And the gap exists even as unemployment for minority groups overall is near record lows.
“Many states have ‘ban the box’ laws barring initial job applications from asking if candidates have a criminal history. But a prison record can block progress after interviews or background checks — especially for convictions more serious than nonviolent drug offenses, which have undergone a more sympathetic public reappraisal in recent years.
“For economic policymakers, a persistent demand for labor paired with a persistent lack of work for many former prisoners presents an awkward conundrum: A wide swath of citizens have re-entered society — after a quadrupling of the U.S. incarceration rate over 40 years — but the nation’s economic engine is not sure what to with them.”
Additional reading:
EXPO (EX-incarcerated People Organizing)
The New York Times, March 31, 2023: Here’s What Happens as the Era of Mass Incarceration Winds Down
Prison Policy Initiative, February 8, 2022: New data on formerly incarcerated people’s employment reveal labor market injustices
