Abstract
In 2021, community development staff from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, and Philadelphia hosted a conference, Uneven Outcomes in the Labor Market: Understanding Trends and Identifying Solutions. The conference convened a diverse network of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to examine inequities in labor market outcomes and explore the implications of disparities on aggregate economic performance, individual workers, and communities. They also identified new directions for policy and research.
Understanding employment conditions requires evidence from a wide spectrum of sources. To this end, the Federal Reserve is interested in highlighting research that examines disparities in employment, labor force participation, income, and wealth across demographic groups. Do relatively low levels of labor force participation for some prime working-age groups represent slack that, if successfully tapped, could increase the labor force and boost economic activity? Do shocks to the labor market disproportionately affect certain groups? Because of past and present exclusionary policies and practices, racial disparities in employment outcomes have persisted throughout U.S. history. Analyzing these disparate outcomes can inform policy that identify those who are excluded from the mainstream economy and suggests pathways for inclusion.