Do Low-Wage Employers Discriminate Against Applicants with Long Commutes? Evidence from a Correspondence Experiment

Abstract

I use a correspondence study of the low-wage labor market in Washington, DC to test whether employers discriminate against applicants who live farther from the job location. Fictional résumés randomly assigned to have addresses far from the job location receive 14% fewer callbacks than those with addresses in nearby but similarly affluent neighborhoods. Living 5–6 miles away from the job results in a penalty equal to that received by applicants with stereotypically black names. On the other hand, holding commute distance constant, I find no statistical evidence that employers respond to a neighborhood’s affluence.