TRICKLING DOWN: DOES LOCAL JOB GROWTH REDUCE POVERTY?

Was local job growth a significant determinant of poverty reduction between 1990 and 2000? This research takes advantage of newly available data and techniques to explore the job growth on tract-level poverty reduction. Spatial corrections to the model allow for more accurate identification of the significant determinants of poverty reduction across the United States. Results indicate that job growth is a highly significant predictor of poverty reduction, though its effect is modest. While spatial models didn't materially affect the regression coefficients, significant gains in model explanatory power were seen when using a spatial model as compared to OLS.