The challenge
Criminal records shut many Black men out of jobs, widening racial employment gaps.
The case
In 2015 New Jersey and New York City barred employers from asking about criminal records on initial job applications. Amanda Agan and Sonja Starr sent about 15,000 fictitious online applications, varying Black- or white-sounding names and felony records, before and after the laws took effect. Records were a real barrier: employers that asked were 63% more likely to call applicants with no record. Before the law, white applicants to employers with the box got 7% more callbacks than similar Black applicants; after the box was removed, that gap grew to 43%, suggesting employers guessed at records from race. A national study by Jennifer Doleac and Benjamin Hansen found Ban the Box cut employment of young, low-skilled Black men by 3.4 percentage points.
Why it didn't work
Hiding one piece of information without tackling bias can push employers to guess from race instead, so the policy backfired on the group it aimed to help.
Sources
- Agan, A. & Starr, S. (2018). Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Racial Discrimination: A Field Experiment. Quarterly Journal of Economics.
- Doleac, J. & Hansen, B. (2020). The Unintended Consequences of 'Ban the Box'. Journal of Labor Economics.
Spot an error or know a better source? Tell us