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The Role of Homophily in Response to Labor Market Opportunities: Differences Across Race and Ethnicity
March 2026
Working Paper Number:
CES-26-22
This paper investigates the role that homophily might play in explaining racial/ethnic disparities in the labor market. We find that Black and Hispanic workers are less responsive than White workers to changes in job opportunities, but responsiveness increases when those opportunities present themselves in locations with a higher share own-race population. The analysis makes use of restricted American Community Survey data, accessible through the Federal Statistical Research Data Centers, allowing us to include commuting zones that may otherwise not be identified because of suppressed location information in the public data
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Status Inconsistency and Geographic Mobility in the United States
March 2026
Working Paper Number:
CES-26-20
This study examines how neighborhood status and individual status jointly shape geographic mobility in the United States. Drawing on restricted-use American Community Survey data, we conceptualize neighborhood status as the relative standing of a census tract's median family income compared to demographically similar reference neighborhoods, and individual status as a household's relative income rank within its tract. Building on comparison theory and status inconsistency perspectives, we test whether mismatches between neighborhood and individual status influence short-distance (within-county) and long-distance (between-county) mobility. Multinomial logistic models reveal that disadvantaged neighborhood status increases within-county mobility, particularly when paired with high individual status, supporting spatial assimilation arguments. Conversely, low individual status in high-status neighborhoods heightens mobility, consistent with relative deprivation theory rather than status signaling. Results suggest that status inconsistency plays a central role in residential decision-making and that neighborhood status primarily affects short-distance mobility. The findings advance research on stratification and internal migration by integrating relative contextual and positional mechanisms.
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Neighborhood Racial Status and White Out-Mobility
March 2026
Working Paper Number:
CES-26-19
Drawing on American Community Survey data, this study examines how whites' relative socioeconomic standing vis-'-vis nonwhite neighbors affects the association between minority presence and white out-mobility. Moving beyond the racial preferences versus racial proxy debate, we integrate group competition and contact theories with status theory to conceptualize 'racial status' as whites' first-order income rank relative to the subgroup status of Black, Hispanic, and Asian residents at the census tract level. Multilevel linear probability models show that whites lacking advantaged status are generally more likely to move. However, the positive association between Black or Asian concentration and white departure is weaker among status-disadvantaged whites, while the negative association with Hispanic concentration is stronger. These patterns lend greater support to contact theory than to group competition theory. By foregrounding relative status, the study demonstrates that racial and socioeconomic mechanisms are intertwined in shaping white residential mobility.
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The Mortality Risk of Raising Grandchildren in the United States
February 2026
Working Paper Number:
CES-26-13
In the United States, grandparents who live with and provide primary care to their grandchildren have emerged as a particularly vulnerable group since the 1990s. Using confidential data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Social Security Administration, this study linked individuals aged 50 years or older from the 2000 census long-form sample to their death records from 2000'2019 (weighted n = 64,027,000) and examined the longitudinal association between coresident grandparenting status and mortality for non-Hispanic Whites, non-Hispanic Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. We found consistently higher rates of mortality for White coresident grandparents and lower rates for Asian coresident grandparents, regardless of the duration of primary caregiving, compared to their peers without coresident grandchildren. We also found increased risks of mortality among Hispanic long-term primary caregivers but reduced risks among Black short-term primary caregivers, compared to their peers without coresident grandchildren.
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School-Based Disability Identification Varies by Student Family Income
December 2025
Authors:
Quentin Brummet,
Andrew Penner,
Emily Penner,
Leah R. Clark,
Michelle Spiegel,
Paul Y. Yoo,
Paul Hanselman,
Nicholas J. Ainsworth,
Christopher Cleveland,
Jacob Hibel,
Andrew Saultz,
Juan Camilo Cristancho
Working Paper Number:
CES-25-74
Currently, 18 percent of K-12 students in the United States receive additional supports through the identification of a disability. Socioeconomic status is viewed as central to understanding who gets identified as having a disability, yet limited large-scale evidence examines how disability identification varies for students from different income backgrounds. Using unique data linking information on Oregon students and their family income, we document pronounced income-based differences in how students are categorized for two school-based disability supports: special education services and Section 504 plans. We find that a quarter of students in the lowest income percentile receive supports through special education, compared with less than seven percent of students in the top income percentile. This pattern may partially reflect differences in underlying disability-related needs caused by poverty. However, we find the opposite pattern for 504 plans, where students in the top income percentiles are two times more likely to receive 504 plan supports. We further document substantial variation in these income-based differences by disability category, by race/ethnicity, and by grade level. Together, these patterns suggest that disability-related needs alone cannot account for the income-based differences that we observe and highlight the complex ways that income shapes the school and family processes that lead to variability in disability classification and services.
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Gifted Identification Across the Distribution of Family Income
December 2025
Authors:
Quentin Brummet,
Andrew Penner,
Emily Penner,
Leah R. Clark,
Michelle Spiegel,
Paul Hanselman,
Nicholas J. Ainsworth,
Aaron J. Ainsworth,
Christopher Cleveland,
Jacob Hibel,
Andrew Saultz
Working Paper Number:
CES-25-73
Currently, 6.1 percent of K-12 students in the United States receive gifted education. Using education and IRS data that provide information on students and their family income, we show pronounced differences in who schools identify as gifted across the distribution of family income. Under 4 percent of students in the lowest income percentile are identified as gifted, compared with 20 percent of those in the top income percentile. Income-based differences persist after accounting for student test scores and exist across students of different sexes and racial/ethnic groups, underscoring the importance of family resources for gifted identification in schools.
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Differences in Disability Insurance Allowance Rates
August 2025
Working Paper Number:
CES-25-54
Allowance rates for disability insurance applications vary by race and ethnicity, but it is unclear to what extent these differences are artifacts of other differing socio-economic and health characteristics, or selection issues in SSA's race and ethnicity data. This paper uses the 2015 American Community Survey linked to 2015-2019 SSA administrative data to investigate DI application allowance rates among non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic Asian, non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native, and Hispanic applicants aged 25-65. The analysis uses regression, propensity score matching, and inverse probability weighting to estimate differences in allowance rates among applicants who are similar on observable characteristics. Relative to raw comparisons, differences by race and ethnicity in multivariate analyses are substantially smaller in magnitude and are generally not statistically significant.
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Income, Wealth, and Environmental Inequality in the United States
October 2024
Working Paper Number:
CES-24-57
This paper explores the relationships between air pollution, income, wealth, and race by combining administrative data from U.S. tax returns between 1979'2016, various measures of air pollution, and sociodemographic information from linked survey and administrative data. In the first year of our data, the relationship between income and ambient pollution levels nationally is approximately zero for both non-Hispanic White and Black individuals. However, at every single percentile of the national income distribution, Black individuals are exposed to, on average, higher levels of pollution than White individuals. By 2016, the relationship between income and air pollution had steepened, primarily for Black individuals, driven by changes in where rich and poor Black individuals live. We utilize quasi-random shocks to income to examine the causal effect of changes in income and wealth on pollution exposure over a five year horizon, finding that these income'pollution elasticities map closely to the values implied by our descriptive patterns. We calculate that Black-White differences in income can explain ~10 percent of the observed gap in air pollution levels in 2016.
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Separate but Not Equal: The Uneven Cost of Residential Segregation for Network-Based Hiring
October 2024
Working Paper Number:
CES-24-56
This paper studies how residential segregation by race and by education affects job search via neighbor networks. Using confidential microdata from the US Census Bureau, I measure segregation for each characteristic at both the individual level and the neighborhood level. My findings are manifold. At the individual level, future coworkership with new neighbors on the same block is less likely among segregated individuals than among integrated workers, irrespective of races and levels of schooling. The impacts are most adverse for the most socioeconomically disadvantaged demographics: Blacks and those without a high school education. At the block level, however, higher segregation along either dimension raises the likelihood of any future coworkership on the block for all racial or educational groups. My identification strategy, capitalizing on data granularity, allows a causal interpretation of these results. Together, they point to the coexistence of homophily and in-group competition for job opportunities in linking residential segregation to neighbor-based informal hiring. My subtle findings have important implications for policy-making.
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Comparison of Child Reporting in the American Community Survey and Federal Income Tax Returns Based on California Birth Records
September 2024
Working Paper Number:
CES-24-55
This paper takes advantage of administrative records from California, a state with a large child population and a significant historical undercount of children in Census Bureau data, dependent information in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 1040 records, and the American Community Survey to characterize undercounted children and compare child reporting. While IRS Form 1040 records offer potential utility for adjusting child undercounting in Census Bureau surveys, this analysis finds overlapping reporting issues among various demographic and economic groups. Specifically, older children, those of Non-Hispanic Black mothers and Hispanic mothers, children or parents with lower English proficiency, children whose mothers did not complete high school, and families with lower income-to-poverty ratio were less frequently reported in IRS 1040 records than other groups. Therefore, using IRS 1040 dependent records may have limitations for accurately representing populations with characteristics associated with the undercount of children in surveys.
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