Employment Barriers for Ex-Offenders

This report on Barriers to Employment: Prison Time, prepared at the request of Legal Action of Wisconsin and the Private Industry Council, focuses on legal and employment needs of 26,772 Milwaukee County adults released from state Department of Corrections facilities since 1993 and another 10,308 residents still incarcerated as of June 2006. The lack of driver's license and low educational levels of these populations stand in stark contrast to the limited number of jobs available in the neighborhoods where the prisoners are released.

• Milwaukee County has seen almost a 400% increase in the number of prisoners released from DOC facilities annually. The population is mostly male (89%) and minority (73%).

• The rapidly increasing number of persons incarcerated in DOC facilities has led to a disproportionate impact on young African American males. An estimated 40% of African American males ages 25 through 29 who currently live in Milwaukee County have spent time in the Wisconsin corrections system. In contrast, only 5% of white and 5% of Hispanic males of that age group have done time in DOC facilities.

• Only 7% of the released population showed records of a valid driver's license without recent suspensions or revocations -- leaving the vast majority unable to legally drive to jobs in the metro area.

• For Hispanics 72% had failed to complete high school, as had 60% of African Americans and 37% of whites. Education levels are very low, particularly for younger minority populations newly released. Recommendations are provided. More >>

NAACP Report Card on Construction Jobs

The Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP collaborated with the Employment and Training Institute in preparing a Report Card on Minority and Female Participation in Construction Trade Apprentices in the Milwaukee Area: Who's in the Pipeline for Skilled Construction Trades in 2006 and a second year follow-up report card in 2008. In the last 2 years 85 companies (75 union and 10 non-union) increased their numbers of African American apprentices. The African American share of Milwaukee area union apprenticeships increased from 8% to 11%, and the share of non-union apprenticeships rose from less than 1% in 2005 and 5% by 2007. A committee of the NAACP has been working on this issue for four years.

A second report by the Employment and Training Institute analyzed Who Gets Construction Jobs and Where? Employment of African Americans, Hispanics and Total Minorities in the Construction Industry and Construction Trades in the Milwaukee MSA. According to the Census 2000 place-of-work files, whites still hold 82% of construction jobs at City of Milwaukee worksites, 90% of jobs at worksites in the Milwaukee County suburbs, and 96% of jobs at construction worksites in the WOW counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties). In the Milwaukee MSA, 93% of construction industry supervisors and managers are white.

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2007 Community Indicators for Innercity Milwaukee

The neighborhood indicators report for Milwaukee zipcode 53206 is the first of the 2007 series tracking economic and employment well-being of families in central city neighborhoods. This year's reports include two new sections assessing unprecedented increases in subprime and high-interest rate housing loans to neighborhood residents and landlords, and the growing population of ex-offenders. The 53206 zipcode neighborhood serves as a bellwether for poverty changes in Milwaukee and nationally. In the 1990s prior to welfare reform in Wisconsin it had the largest number of families receiving AFDC. In the 2000 Census it showed the largest number of families in poverty among Milwaukee zipcodes.

• State Department of Corrections files showed that nearly two-thirds (62%) of men in their 30s in the neighborhood had been incarcerated in state DOC facilities since 1993 or are currently incarcerated.

• An estimated 2,500 adults now living in zipcode 53206 were previously incarcerated in DOC facilities from 1993 to 2006. These adults, mostly male (89%) and nearly all African American (like the neighborhood population which is 97% African American) face major barriers to employment. Only 4% had a valid driver's license with no suspensions or revocations, and 63% had not completed high school or a GED. Recidivism rates for those ages 25-34 were 53%.

  

• The neighborhood also faces high growth in costly high risk mortgages, fueled by rising housing prices and predatory lending practices. (60 subprime lending companies had issued loans in the zipcode.) Subprime loans (46%) and high-interest loans (32%) make up over three-fourths of the mortgages issued for owner-occupants in 2005. Subprime loans are typically made to individuals with poor credit histories, offer less favorable terms of repayment, and often involve high fees and prepayment penalties. In Milwaukee County subprime lending activity is heavily concentrated in central city and minority neighborhoods. (See maps in the executive summary.)

• Neighborhood assets include a relatively high rate of home ownership for single parents, untapped retail spending, the growth of child care businesses, increases in individuals reporting full or partial self-employment, and government ecoomic support for families (including high claim rates for the earned income tax credit).

2006 community indicators reports are available for ZIP codes 53204, 53205, 53208, 53210, 53212, 53216, 53218, and 53233. 2007 reports with ex-offender and subprime lending housing analysis will be issued when funding becomes available. More >>.

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Free Purchasing Power Data for All U.S. Census Tracts and Residential ZIP Codes

For the 100 largest metro areas in the U.S., the Employment and Training Institute has 1,600 tables and 200 metro maps available ranking zipcodes in each metro area by estimated expenditures for 16 categories of consumer spending, including food at home, apparel, appliances, electronics equipments, home furnishings, personal products, and non-prescription drugs and supplies. Tables on the ETI Metro Data Page allow cities to compare consumer expenditures per square in densely populated city neighborhoods with the "urban sprawl" communities typically touted by national marketing firms for their "median household income."

The ETI data uses a state-of-the-art methodology based on detailed Consumer Expenditure Surveys of spending patterns of families by the U.S. Census Bureau. Customized purchasing power profiles are made available free of charge, and without the anti-urban, anti-racial stereotypes often accompanying many of the for-profit products or the special "inner city" approaches by vendors repackaging data from the for-profit companies. To aid policymakers and students in making their own maps, downloadable files are provided with free shapefiles and business, household/income, and workforce density census databases. For more on the Purchasing Power Profiles (PPPs) and background on their applications in Milwaukee and other cities, see the ETI Purchasing Power Profile and Retail Sales Leakage/Surplus Home Page

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Central City Milwaukee Purchasing Power Assets

For background on the anti-urban and racial stereotypes embedded in reports of purchasing power by many national marketing firms, see Confronting Anti-Urban Marketing Stereotypes: A Milwaukee Economic Development Challenge. The paper's history of cluster marketing offers examples of computer-generated stereotypes that discourage economic development in neighborhoods with heavy concentrations of children and non-white populations. In fact, the purchasing power estimates show that residents of zipcode 53206 on Milwaukee's near northside spend about $13.1 million per square mile for food at home, more than 10 times the expenditures per square mile in Grafton, Germantown, or Menomonee Falls, and more than triple the expenditures per square mile in the "North Shore" (zipcode 53217) or Brookfield.

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Housing Integration Research

In 2004, Lois Quinn served on a five-member panel to review the U.S. Census Bureau's study on "Racial and Ethnic Residential Segregation in the United States." Her assessment of the Census Bureau report identifies assumptions and limitations of the indexes used. Quinn raises concerns about definitions of race used for the study, the "white reference" perspectives imbedded in the indexes selected, the choice of census tracts (rather than blocks), and the reliance on metropolitan statistical area boundaries as proxies for housing markets.

An Employment and Training Institute study on "Racial Integration in Urban America: A Block Level Analysis of African American and White Housing Patterns," available in HTML or PDF format, also examines the historic basis of the segregation indexes used by sociologists to rank cities and metro areas on their racial mix. An alternative definition of black-white integration is presented, not as a competitive ranking model, but to expose the biases of the segregation indexes. The study offers 400 maps showing the integrated, predominantly black, and predominantly white neighborhoods in each of the 100 largest metro areas.

In the Milwaukee metro area (Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington, and Waukesha counties), nearly all of the integrated blocks are located in the City of Milwaukee, where one out of five residents (21.7 percent) live in black-white integrated neighborhoods. Less than one percent of the population outside of the City of Milwaukee live on integrated blocks.

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Jobs Manual Available for Other Cities, ETI Survey Metholodogy Now Used by 15 States

At the request of the U.S. Department of Labor, the Employment and Training Institute prepared a manual on Surveying Job Vacancies in Local Labor Markets. This 80-page document (available online) provides information on job vacancy survey design, sampling, methodology, weighting, survey administration, data verification and data analyses issues. Uses of job openings data to assess spatial and skills mismatches within subareas of the labor market and to target training and transportation strategies for workers are also described.

Milwaukee is the first major city to regularly survey employers to determine local labor market needs. The Milwaukee job vacancies surveys are the most extensive and continuous surveys of employer workforce investment needs in the nation. In May 2006, over 3,300 local employers provided data on their job openings to assist with the survey. The ETI Job Vacancy Surveys Page provides links to job openings surveys conducted in other metro areas and states. The Employment and Training Institute methodology is now used by at least 15 states, major metropolitan areas (including Boston, Cleveland, Denver, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, San Francisco and Salt Lake City, among others), and scores of urban and rural counties. The surveys meet the needs of the Workforce Investment Act to provide accurate information on job vacancies, occupations in demand, and the earnings and skill requirements of such occupations to assist the general public and WIA clients.

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Measuring "W-2"/TANF Employment Outcomes

• Employment and Earnings of Milwaukee County Single Parent AFDC Families: Establishing Benchmarks for Measuring Employment Outcomes Under "W-2" tracked 15 months of earnings and employment experience for all 25,125 single parents receiving AFDC in Milwaukee County in December 1995 who were expected to work under "W-2." Of 7,502 single parents leaving AFDC in September 1996, only 1 out of 6 had family-supporting wages for the next three months, and 1 out of 3 had no earnings for the next three months.

• The Employer Perspective: Jobs Held by the Milwaukee County AFDC Single Parent Population examined 42,120 jobs held by single parents on AFDC and expected to work under welfare reform. Only 818 of the 19,074 jobs held in Fourth Quarter 1996 paid family-sustaining wages for two consecutive quarters. Temp agencies were used by 42% of parents employed.

• A collaborative study with the Milwaukee Area Technical College, Project Get Started: Phase II assessed the employment readiness, child care needs, and social service needs of mothers with children under age one receiving AFDC.

• In the 1990s the Institute conducted evaluations for the Wisconsin Legislature on welfare employment programs in 31 counties and the state's Learnfare policy. Summaries of these evaluations are online.

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Subsidized Child Care

Worker surveys by the Employment and Training Institute have identified child care and transportation to work as challenges for central city families. Reports on child care barriers to employment examine use of child care subsidies in Milwaukee County, child care rates and the rate setting process for the Wisconsin Shares subsidy program, and patterns of day care usage among Milwaukee County families with preschool children. Subsidies total over $170 million a year in Milwaukee County.

Job Openings in the 7-County Milwaukee Region

Over 3,300 employers participated in the regional survey of job openings in the seven counties of Southeastern Wisconsin as of the week of May 24, 2006. An estimated 18,588 full-time openings and 8,487 part-time openings were reported, with Milwaukee County showing the majority of full-time openings for 6 of the 8 industrial sectors. The southeast counties of Racine, Kenosha and Walworth had 8% of the region's full-time openings but 17% of part-time openings.

• Milwaukee County has the greatest share of full-time high skilled job openings with 65% of jobs for four-year college graduates and 54% of jobs requiring technical training, associate degrees, certification, licensing or occupation-specific training. Only 12% of full-time job openings in Milwaukee County were available to workers without training or experience beyond high school.

• The predominance of retail and wholesale trade in the Kenosha-Racine-Walworth counties' economies resulted in high demand for part-time workers, but the distance of these jobs from Milwaukee places them outside the reach of City of Milwaukee residents.

A companion analysis of where residents work showed a number of very different and distinct labor markets in the Milwaukee Region. Only 1% of City of Milwaukee resident workers and 1% of Milwaukee County resident workers are employed at jobsites in the 3 southeast counties, while 85% of City residents and 81% of county residents work within Milwaukee County and most of the rest work in the WOW (Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington) counties.

Training is key to entry and advancement in the full-time job market of the region.

• 31% of full-time openings and 6% of part-time openings in the region require a four-year college degree (or more).

• Another 49% of full-time openings and 51% of part-time openings require technical training, certification, licensing or occupation-specific experience. High demand for technically trained workers was noted in the health sector and in manufacturing.

The report on An Analysis of Job Openings in the Milwaukee Region: Job Supply and Demand was prepared for the Private Industry Council of Milwaukee County to improve training for county workers. An Occupational Drill Down of Training Needs in the Milwaukee Metro Area, prepared for the Milwaukee Area Technical College, examines 6 occupational areas where technical training is required. The report on Job Opportunities for Milwaukee Youth Entering the Labor Force, prepared for the Department of Labor planning of the Milwaukee Job Corps Center, describes employment and training options for new labor force participants.

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Job Training Needs in Metro Milwaukee

The Employment and Training Institute worked with the Private Industry Council to report on Job Openings in the Week of May 24, 2006 in the four-county metro area. The survey helps meet the needs of the Workforce Investment Act to provide accurate and current information on training needs, job vacancies, occupations in demand, and the earnings and skill requirements of current full-time and part-time openings. These surveys, conducted since 1993, are the most extensive and continuous surveys of employer workforce training needs in the nation.

The survey found an estimated 17,020 full-time and 7,036 part-time openings in Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington, and Waukesha counties. (A companion report analyzes job needs for the seven-county Milwaukee Region.)

• Total openings for full-time work were up for all employment sectors except government.

• The number of full-time openings in manufacturing (4,495 vacancies) is at an all-time high for the last decade and at its second-highest level since the survey began in 1993. Firms reported need for machine operators (1,053 full-time openings), assemblers (350 full-time openings), and welders (351 full-time openings).

• The health industry remains a dominant force in the job market, with nearly one out of every five job openings for persons providing health care or working for health care providers. The largest number of openings in the health field were for 1,316 registered nurses, 502 health aides, 446 nursing assistants, 383 health technologists and technicians, and 342 therapists.

• The estimated number of full-time jobs for college graduates was at an all-time high, and the vast majority of these openings (80 percent) also required employment experience in a professional field.

• Demand for computer specialists has again escalated with over 1,200 full-time openings available in computer fields, e.g. computer programmers, software engineers, IT consultants, systems analysts, equipment operators. Many other job openings in all fields -- and even jobs for entry-level workers -- are specifying that applicants have basic computer skills.

Pockets of training opportunities were shown for occupations available to unskilled and semiskilled workers, including those without a high school diploma. For example, high demand was indicated for supervisors of food preparation occupations, where an estimated 325 full-time openings were reported for experienced workers with high school or less. The full report is also available online.

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ETI Drill Down Kits for All U.S. Neighborhoods and "How-To" Applications

The Employment and Training Institute now offers easy-to-use free downloads of census data on workers residing in and employed in each U.S. census tract along with state-of-the-art purchasing power estimates of consumer expenditures and retail sales leakage or surplus by neighborhood. The ETI drill down website can be used for business plans, economic development, emerging business development, and academic research.

The place-of-work, transportation and diversity analyses offer a first-time online examination of existing jobs in city neighborhoods from the perspective of underserved communities. The employer diversity drilldowns can be used to further economic development for underutilized minority populations and to assess progress toward meeting availability standards for African American, Latino and Asian American workers.

Three new "How-To" instructional reports provide detailed applications of ways to use the ETI Drill Down Tool Kits to measure and map diversity in employment at federal, state and local government jobsites, to use drilldowns to further commercial development in central city neighborhoods, and to assist HUD renewal community, empowerment zones, and community development block grant neighborhoods.

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Companies located in the City of Milwaukee have greater access to the full range of Milwaukee area workers, including those dependent on mass transit. The report on A Labor Market Planning Document for Employers: Changing Demographics of the Milwaukee Metro Area Labor Force is available in HTML or PDF format, and includes maps of the density of Milwaukee area workers by occupational area.

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Drivers License Issues

The Center for Driver's License Recovery & Employability has been established by the Milwaukee Bar Association, Justice 2000, City of Milwaukee municipal court, Milwaukee County Circuit Court, and Milwaukee Area Technical College, with funding from foundations and the City of Milwaukee. A first-year Assessment of 2007 Client Outcomes found high success rates for driver's license recovery for a low-income and heavily minority population.

A research paper on The Driver License Status of the Voting Age Population in Wisconsin provides a first-time analysis of the drivers license status of adults in Wisconsin by race/ethnicity, sex, and geography. The study looks at populations of Wisconsin adults without valid licenses. Previous ETI research shows the need for transportation to access a majority of job openings in the Milwaukee metro area and the importance of the license as a predictor of leaving public assistance.

The study found that 78% of young African American men (ages 18-24) and 66% of young African American women in Wisconsin do not have a valid drivers license. Over half (57%) of young Hispanic men and 63% of young Hispanic women also do not have valid licenses.

Analysis of the state licensing files find that a large number of licensed drivers have had their licenses suspended or revoked, many for failure to pay fines and forfeitures rather than for traffic points violations. License files show 89,489 Milwaukee County residents and 237,434 adults in the balance of the state with recent license suspensions or revocations. In 2003 alone the City of Milwaukee municipal court issued 68,191 license suspensions to city residents for not paying civil forfeitures, and 81% of these suspensions were issued to African Americans, 9% to Latinos, and 9% to whites. As a result, only one-third of young men in the poorer Milwaukee neighborhoods have a valid license. Meanwhile, three-fourths of job openings in the metro area are located in the suburbs.

Many adults do not have a drivers license or a state-issued photo ID (identification which may be required under proposed voter legislation). The population of elderly persons 65 and older without a drivers license or state photo ID totals 177,399, of which 70 percent are women and over 90 percent are white. An estimated 98,247 Wisconsin residents ages 35 through 64 also do not have either a drivers license (valid or not) or a photo ID.

Earlier studies on transportation barriers to employment examine the driver's license status of teenagers and young adult workers in Milwaukee County.

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Workforce Demand for Nurses and Teachers

Analysis of the pool of licensed nurses and public school teachers in Wisconsin shows fewer women seeking out these occupations, the aging of both populations, and increasing numbers of retirees. The population of employed public school teachers retiring at age 55 or shortly thereafter is of particular concern as these professionals have at least ten more years of potential workforce attachment and are a population we want to keep in the state. The problem of retirements of nurses is compounded by the large number of women leaving the field before retirement age and the relatively small numbers entering the professions.

The small number of African Americans and Hispanics entering the nursing profession raises concerns about the future stability of this critical workforce. The Milwaukee metro area shows less than 60 African Americans and less than 20 Hispanics (compared to about 900 whites) among registered nurses (RNs) and licensed practical nurses (LPNs) in their mid-to-late twenties. The study on Workforce Development Challenges: Meeting Present and Future Demand for Nursing and Teaching Professionals in Metro Milwaukee is available online.

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Brookings Papers Identifying Urban Assets

Discussion papers prepared for The Brookings Institution by Quinn and Pawasarat offer models for using local, state, and federal data to measure the health and well-being of city neighborhoods. "Tracking the Progress of Welfare Reform Quickly: A Model for Measuring Neighborhood Health and Change" identifies a series of neighborhood indicators to measure the impact of welfare reform and worker benefit policies on families, to address continuing barriers to employment for central city residents, and to craft policies that help families attain economic self-sufficiency.

Exposing Urban Legends: The Real Purchasing Power of Central City Neighborhoods discusses problems with data sold by major marketing companies to describe central city neighborhoods. The paper offers a template cities can use to develop their own estimates of purchasing power by neighborhood based on current local, state, and federal databases.

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Tax Credits for Working Families

Research on Usage of the Earned Income Tax Credit by Employed Families in Milwaukee County showed federal and state earned income tax credits to working families in Milwaukee County totaling $128.9 million in 1998, up from $49.5 million in 1993. A total of 52,081 families received credits and the EITC raised family earnings above the poverty level for an estimated 8,090 families. Claim rates were lower in 1998 than in 1997, particularly for the lowest income families and for married filers. It is estimated that there were at least $27 million in unclaimed federal and state earned income tax credits for the 1998 tax year.

A review of 2004 tax year credit claims in central city Milwaukee neighborhoods estimated that 90-94 percent of eligible single parent tax filers were claiming the EIC in most central city neighborhoods. The estimated claim rate among married filers was lower -- at 70-85 percent in most neighborhoods. Take-up rates for the EIC were very low in ZIP code 53204, where only 36 percent of married filers income-eligible for the credit receive it. These lower take-up rates appear to be directly related to the adverse terms of the federal tax law for immigrant families.

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School to Work Follow-Up and Curricula

The Employment and Training Institute, working with Milwaukee Public Schools and Milwaukee Area Technical College, tracked the earnings of MPS students graduating from MATC and UWM, conducted a follow-up study of the MPS Class of 1999.

In collaboration with the Milwaukee Area Technical College and MPS teachers, ETI developed student Thinking About the Future: Job Opportunities in the Milwaukee Labor Market booklets and teacher guides to help Milwaukee area students use local labor market information and Internet resources in their career planning.