US Companies Often Assume Black Job Applicants Do Drugs

[gollygee]

(Subject line comes from Huff Post)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/07/hiring-discrimination_n_5276978.html

More than any other group, black job applicants are being turned away by U.S. companies under the implicit assumption that they are using illegal drugs, according to a new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

The study’s author, University of Notre Dame economics professor Abigail Wozniak, looked at how hiring practices differ between states with laws that incentivize or encourage drug testing and states with laws that limit or do not require such testing. She found that pro-testing legislation has a “large” and positive effect on black employment and wages, especially among low-skilled black men.

As the chart below shows, enacting pro-drug testing laws improves the share of blacks working in what Wozniak terms high-testing industries, while leading to a decrease in the share of whites working in such industries.

[GeorgeGist]

1. National Bureau of Economic Research

A December 1, 2002, news story in the New York Times [1] on the National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc., of Cambridge, MA, called the institution non-partisan but failed to identify a penny of the $10 million it receives in conservative philanthropic underwriting.

"Reporter David Leonhardt found time to report that the bureau, headed by Martin S. Feldstein, guru to Bush-economics, is the 'nation's premier economic research organization,' but couldn't do a simple Google search to determine where it gets its money.

"But reporter Leonhardt 'does' have some interesting things to say about Harvard University:

"Still, Ec10, as it is known at Harvard, is hardly neutral -- in its readings or its lectures -- and its point of view contributes a good deal to his importance. Over the last two decades, thousands of Harvard undergraduates have received a decidedly anti-tax, free-market-leaning introduction to economics.
"And there's this gem about Feldstein's partisanship and his crappy economic analysis, 'driven' by partisanship:

"For his part, Mr. Feldstein has shown little taste since the 1980's for straying from the Republican Party line. In 1992, he predicted that the Clinton administration's tax increase would stifle economic growth and do little to erase the deficit...In 2001, when President Bush was forming his cabinet, Mr. Feldstein and his wife began a Boston Globe article by writing, 'Paul O'Neill was an inspired choice for secretary of the Treasury.' Mr. Feldstein is also on the board of Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical company with strong Republican ties.
"And the next time you hear someone refer to Feldstein as from Harvard, remember that, according to Feldstein,

"I have a Harvard office, but I hardly ever use it..."
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Bureau_of_Economic_Research

[gollygee]

2. Paul Krugman is a member

Do you have any comments about the article or the charts in it?

[gollygee]

3. .