Abstract
The paper tests whether low-income workers suffer a greater commuting cost burden compared with a typical commuter within the context of decreasing economic opportunity. The paper adds to the spatial mismatch research by studying the metropolitan area in the U.S. South, which experienced “some of the largest decreases” in job proximity in 2012. Memphis, Tennessee, saw the disproportionately steep declines in the average employment opportunities within a typical commute distance experienced by low-income and minority residents. The paper first delineates low-income neighborhoods across the study area, then identifies commuting patterns within the three-state study area including the greater Memphis, and lastly, it compares average commute lengths by a typical and a low-income commuter, as well as the shares of resident workers with a long commute by earning category. The paper offers insight into the ways in which the changes in spatial location of employment and population within the metropolitan area may impact commuting distance for disadvantaged low-income travelers. We show low-income workers commute statistically significantly shorter distances to their places of work compared with a typical commuter. Our other results find that disadvantaged workers in Shelby County, TN, are disproportionately concentrated in lower-wage industries, such as hospitality and retail service industries, compared to overall workers. Finally, a significantly greater proportion of disadvantaged workers travel long distances of over 50 miles compared with higher-earning workers, indicating the disparity in commuting patterns between a typical resident and a low-income worker.
Highlights
Considerable attention has been given to regional economic growth plans in the Southern U.S, such as what types of jobs and development policies can drive long-range growth [1]
Commuting flows produced by commuters from all residential tracts and low-income tracts in Shelby County, to work tracts in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi are visualized
Based on the Census Transportation Planning Products (CTPP) 2012–2016 tract-to-tract flow data, Figure 7 shows distribution of commute distance in miles by workers residing across all tracts in Shelby County (a) and those in low-income tracts (b), without matching to potential low-paying jobs
Summary
Considerable attention has been given to regional economic growth plans in the Southern U.S, such as what types of jobs and development policies can drive long-range growth [1]. Growing distance between people and jobs in metropolitan America negatively affects accessibility and challenges regional economic development within the Southern U.S Increasing commuting impacts economic and social outcomes, including local financial viability due to the fiscal tax base derived from commercial and industrial taxes, the quality of public services, residential proximity to retail, and employment outcomes for residents, especially among low-income and minority workers [7]. The latter is related to the duration of joblessness for black, female, and older workers. We close by providing conclusions and a discussion of the future work in the sixth section
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