The persistence of spatial mismatch in metropolitan America: New evidence on disparities facing Black workers and low-wage workers

Despite implementation of policies designed to mitigate spatial mismatch by reducing segregation and increasing mobility, scholars have shown that disparities in access to jobs experienced by Black workers may persist because of structural racism in housing markets, and that low-wage workers and other marginalized groups may also experience spatial mismatch. We provide new evidence on the severity of spatial mismatch experienced by Black workers and low-wage workers in metropolitan America in 2019 for automobile- and transit-based commutes at two time thresholds (i.e., 30 and 60 min) using two measures, job accessibility and accessibility-based dissimilarity index (ADI). We test the hypotheses: Black workers experienced greater spatial mismatch than white workers; and low-wage workers experienced greater spatial mismatch than middle-/high-wage workers. We find ADI provides more theoretically valid measures of spatial mismatch because it accounts for workers' housing distribution; whereas job accessibility tends to underestimate the severity of spatial mismatch for Black workers. We find Black/white disparities universal for auto-dependent Black workers across metropolitan areas, but Black transit commuters do not face disadvantaged statuses in 43 of 100 metros. Disparities experienced by low-wage workers relative to middle-/high-wage workers are not as severe as those of Black workers relative to white workers. Renewed focus on eliminating disparities is warranted.