They will be joining an inner-city labor market that is already saturated with better educated and more experienced workers who are preferred by employers. The comparison is instructive. Even in Harlem, African Americans are at a disadvantage in hiring compared to Latinos and others. Employers, including black employers, favor applicants who are not African American. But they are rejected at a much higher rate than applicants from other ethnic groups with the same educational qualifications.
Employers also seem to favor job applicants who commute from more distant neighborhoods.
The rejection rate for local applicants is higher than the rate for similarly educated individuals who live farther away. This pattern holds even for people of the same race, sex, and age. Other studies in the warehouse and dockyard industries report the same results. These findings suggests that residents of poor neighborhoods such as central Harlem are at a distinct disadvantage in finding minimum-wage jobs near home. Mothers of young children face particular problems if they can't find jobs close to home.