836075

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SCUXXX10.1177/2329496519836075Social CurrentsDollar et al.

Article
Social Currents

Joblessness, Poverty, and

2019, Vol. 6(4) 343­–360
© The Southern Sociological Society 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/2329496519836075
https://doi.org/10.1177/2329496519836075

Testing Wilson’s Assertions journals.sagepub.com/home/scu

of Jobless Poverty

Cindy Brooks Dollar1, Ellen A. Donnelly2,

and Karen F. Parker2

Abstract
Political and public rhetoric often tout the detrimental effects of poverty and the stabilizing
effects of jobs when discussing issues of crime and disorder. Several decades ago, William
Julius Wilson proposed that while poverty has been a long-standing problem across U.S. cities,
a “new urban poverty” associated with the massive disappearance of jobs may better explain
neighborhood crime and violence. Although scholarship continues to theorize about the unique
criminogenic effects of area-level poverty and joblessness, criminological research has not
systematically examined the distinct effects of poverty and jobless poverty on neighborhood
crime. In the present analysis, we use data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study
(NNCS) to provide the first empirical investigation of how joblessness, separately from poverty,
influences rates of homicide and other reported violence across 6,406 neighborhoods in 53
U.S. metropolitan areas. A spatially adjusted, multilevel regression analysis reveals that places
with poverty and joblessness are distinct from areas with poverty and no marked joblessness.
Analysis by neighborhood further reveals that joblessness has a stronger effect on violent crime
than poverty itself in severely impoverished areas. As such, we find support for Wilson’s distinct,
criminogenic notion of jobless poverty.

Keywords
joblessness, poverty, jobless poverty, neighborhood crime, homicide

Evidence of political and economic divisive-
ness in the United States has grown. Rising
inequality and gaps in achievement, wages, and
income are well documented (Deaton 2013;
Piketty and Saez 2003), especially if one exam-
ines educational outcomes among children
(Mayer 2001; L. McCall 2000) or differences
across race and ethnic groups (Iceland 2004;
Tienda 1989). While substantial progress was
made in the 1950s and 1960s to reduce inequal-
ity in education, health, and earnings (Piketty
and Saez 2003), trends shifted away from
upward mobility starting in the 1970s. Adding
to that, the economy is an increasingly
bifurcated reality, with low-income families
1
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA
2
University of Delaware, Newark, USA
Corresponding Author:
Cindy Brooks Dollar, Department of Sociology,
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 337 Frank
Porter Graham Building, P.O. Box 26170, Greensboro,
NC 27402-6170, USA.
Email: cbdollar@uncg.edu
344 Social Currents 6(4)
experiencing more rapid declines relative to
high-income families (Kopczuk, Saez, and
Song 2010). Indeed, the latter part of the twen-
tieth century was a period of economic reces-
sion and of prosperity, where the healthy
economy of the 1960s met the recession of the
1970s (Morris and Western 1999).
William Julius Wilson’s work brought
scholarly attention to the economic transfor-
mation heightening the concentration of pov-
erty and joblessness from the 1970s through
2000s (Wilson 1987, 1996). This industrial
restructuring (Kasarda 1989, 1992; Wilson
1987, 1991) resulted in a massive exodus of all
major industries and businesses from U.S. cit-
ies, eroding structural conditions of many
urban centers and leaving residents in margin-
alized positions within the labor markets or
jobless (Krivo and Peterson 1996, 2000; Parker
2004, 2008). Evidence of the impact of indus-
trial restructuring on U.S. cities has been well
documented (Harrington and Levinson 1985;
Massey and Denton 1993; Massey, Gross, and
Eggers 1991; Waldinger 1996; Wilson 2009),
including a sizable drop in the percentage of
persons employed in manufacturing jobs
between 1970 and 2000, where some studies
suggested the decline exceeds 40 percent
(McCall, Parker, and MacDonald 2008; Parker
2008).
Most relevant to this article is capturing
Wilson’s depiction of a “new urban poverty”—
a jobless poverty that is associated with rising
unemployment and joblessness. With the pub-
lication of When Work Disappears over 20
years ago, Wilson (1996) argued that areas
where joblessness and poverty coexist produce
a unique social reality as compared with pov-
erty-stricken areas with available jobs. Since
this publication, Wilson (2003:1103) has fur-
ther clarified his position by writing “the con-
sequences of high neighborhood joblessness
are more devastating than those of high neigh-
borhood poverty.” Wilson, then, has consis-
tently described poverty and joblessness as
distinct social features. While poverty has been
a chronic condition of many inner cities, he
conceptualizes jobless poverty as a new, isolat-
ing neighborhood characteristic that increased
various social disorders, including family
dissolution, weakened community control, and
crime (Wilson 1996). Wilson concluded that
prior to the 1970s, a substantial portion of high
poverty areas had working populations, but by
the 1990s, available jobs in accessible areas
had largely disappeared.
The present study offers the first empirical
investigation of how joblessness differentially
influences rates of violent crime in U.S. neigh-
borhoods when it is separated from poverty. In
doing so, we return to Wilson’s emphasis that
places in which poverty exists are distinct from
places where poverty and joblessness exist.
We also evaluate Wilson’s hypothesis that job-
lessness is more criminogenic than poverty,
especially in communities with severe eco-
nomic deprivation. Using neighborhood and
metropolitan area-level data from the U.S
Census Bureau and the National Neighborhood
Crime Study (NNCS), we estimate a series of
spatially adjusted, nonlinear multilevel models
to separately investigate the effects of poverty
and joblessness on neighborhood homicide
and other violent crime rates. We further
explore the roles of joblessness to differences
in violent crime across neighborhoods with
differing levels of poverty, testing Wilson’s
projection that high poverty areas are most
affected by “new urban poverty.”
Poverty, Joblessness, and
Crime: The Differences
Wilson (1996) theorized joblessness as a new
phenomenon that led to socio-political isola-
tion, thus reproducing and concentrating dis-
advantage and resulting in crime-related
outcomes. While criminological theory has
historically linked poverty to higher crime
rates (e.g., Shaw and McKay 1942), scholars
have long debated about the link between pov-
erty and crime. These debates have focused on
the criminogenic factors associated with pov-
erty (absolute deprivation) versus income
inequality (relative deprivation) (Bailey 1984;
Blau and Blau 1982; Messner 1982), the
importance of unemployment or labor stratifi-
cation over poverty (Chiricos 1987; Crutchfield
1989; Levitt 2001), and arguments that it is the
“concentration” of disadvantage in areas over
Dollar et al. 345
specific structural features, such as poverty
(Land, McCall, and Cohen 1990; Krivo and
Peterson 1996; Sampson and Wilson 1995;
Wilson 1978). Moreover, Crutchfield adds that
marginal or unstable employment is as relevant
as the absence of employment, where the types
of jobs (e.g., part-time or low skilled service
work) located in neighborhoods are linked to
crime (Crutchfield 2014; Crutchfield and
Pitchford 1997).
While some ecological studies on crime
suggest support for the claim that poverty is
one of several characteristics of communities
that lead to crime (McLanahan, Garfinkel, and
Watson 1988; Messner and Tardiff 1986;
Patterson 1991), other research finds inconsis-
tent connections between poverty and crime
across aggregated units (e.g., Kovandzic,
Vieraitis, and Yeisley 1998; Land et al. 1990;
Pratt and Cohen 2005; Warner and Rountree
1997). For example, Krivo and Peterson (1996)
found that extremely disadvantaged neighbor-
hoods have unusually high rates of crime;
however, Hipp and Yates (2011) found that
crime does not rise sharply in extreme-poverty
neighborhoods. Although studies often exam-
ine different neighborhood locales at different
time points, inconsistencies in poverty-crime
relationships across studies are nonetheless
notable.
In investigating poverty’s effect on crime,
researchers generally conceptualize poverty as
some official measure of economic deprivation
(i.e., percentage of the population living below
the federal poverty threshold). Unlike poverty,
joblessness is theorized to produce social mar-
ginalization from “mainstream” or dominant
society. Wilson (1987), in fact, characterizes
jobs as a conventional mechanism of social
control, an opportunity for economic and
social stability, and a means of upward mobil-
ity. Areas marked by a state of joblessness,
then, lack conventional controls and opportu-
nities, consequently producing socio-political
marginalization. In turn, joblessness increases
participation in illegitimate labor markets and
violence (Wilson 1978).
The causes of joblessness are multifaceted.
In brief, joblessness is caused by macroeco-
nomic changes, including deindustrialization
and declines in low-skill jobs in American cit-
ies (Wilson 1996, 1999). Wilson (1999) identi-
fies several, interrelated bases of joblessness.
He contends that the growth of international
trading agreements, economic restructuring,
technological changes, and increasing college
enrollment all resulted in a decreased need for
low-skilled labor historically common in poor
areas. As a result of these changes, many jobs
moved from the inner-city to the suburbs, and
the few jobs that remained were extremely low
wage. In response to the job loss, persons with
enough resources moved from their inner-city
residences, which left urban neighborhoods
and areas surrounding the cities with a dearth
of social and economic resources, including a
lack of mentors promoting conventional or
pro-social routines. The enduring inner-city
population, hence, not only remained poor but
also became socially and politically estranged.
Through this isolation, community support
waned, and the stability of community institu-
tions and controls weakened. As such, neigh-
borhood relationships were further disrupted,
and familial and community conflict erupted.
The detrimental consequences of jobless-
ness have been recorded by numerous scholars,
particularly with regard to criminological out-
comes. For example, Crutchfield, Matsueda,
and Drakulich (2006) concluded that high rates
of neighborhood disorder and violence were
related to socioeconomic disadvantage result-
ing from labor instability. In addition, Anderson
(1999) revealed that poor inner-city communi-
ties marked with joblessness became socially
isolated and turned to violence as a cultural
maladaptation. In his earlier work, Anderson
(1989) claimed that a lack of legitimate jobs
was the primary reason many inner-city resi-
dents turn to sell drugs. Bourgois (1995) simi-
larly found that working in the illegal drug
market was one way to obtain economic
resources in an area where jobs were scarce,
unstable, and low paid. Given the illegal nature
of the work, this job also allowed men to dem-
onstrate their masculinity through perfor-
mances of aggression, risk-taking, and strength.
In support for the criminogenic capacity of
weakened community controls, Pattillo (1999)
argued that “criminal networks” can overpower
346 Social Currents 6(4)
conventional or “pro-social” ones in areas
where pro-social resources are unavailable or
largely limited, which results in high rates of
violent crime.
In sum, it is a “new urban poverty” or a job-
less poverty that stands in considerable con-
trast to the poverty of the past (Wilson 2003).
As When Work Disappears so clearly illus-
trates, neighborhoods in which people are poor
and jobless are different from neighborhoods
marked with poverty but with available jobs.
Wilson (2003:1103) states “. . . many of today’s
problems in the inner-city ghetto neighbor-
hoods—crime, family dissolution, welfare,
low levels of social organization and so on—
are fundamentally a consequence of the disap-
pearance of work.” It is this larger process, a
process where joblessness affects violence in
urban neighborhoods separately from the
influences of poverty that we pursue in the
present empirical investigation. Below, we
describe the data and methodological strategy
used to capture the unique links between pov-
erty and joblessness on neighborhood levels of
violence.
Data and Method
This study uses data from the NNCS to under-
stand the impacts of joblessness as a “new pov-
erty” on violent crime. Exceptional in its
compilation of crime and sociodemographic
data at the neighborhood level, the dataset
gathers official tract-level crime data on the
Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Index
crimes. It also includes sociodemographic
information collected from the 2000 U.S.
Census of Population and Housing for each
census tract and the metropolitan statistical
area (hereafter metropolitan area) for which
the tract is located. Observations at the tract
and metropolitan area levels allow us to exam-
ine what social conditions affect crime patterns
at two geographic levels.
The NNCS includes a representative sample
of large U.S. metropolitan areas and their cor-
responding census tracts. The original NNCS
sample features 9,593 census tracts across 64
metropolitan areas. We then removed observa-
tions from this original dataset if a census tract
had missing crime data (e.g., nonzero, n =
303), more than 50 percent of the tract’s popu-
lation was housed in group quarters (n = 164),
or less than 300 people lived in the tract (n =
623). This process reduced the total number of
metropolitan areas by two. We further subset
our data to observations with complete infor-
mation on key variables. Due to missing data
on these covariates, our final analytic sample
features 6,406 tracts nested within 53 metro-
politan areas throughout the United States. Our
analytic sample then retains more than two
thirds of NNCS observations.1
Measures
Outcomes. Two outcomes of interest are the
number of homicides and the number of vio-
lent crime incidents at the tract level from 1999
to 2001. The NNCS defines homicide as offi-
cial reports of murder and nonnegligent man-
slaughter. We define nonlethal, violent crime
(hereafter violent crime) as official reports of
robbery, aggravated assault, and forcible rape.
The definition follows NNCS’s measure of
violent crime, but it excludes homicide inci-
dents. We use homicide and violent crime as
outcomes because these crimes are more overt
and more likely to be measured reliably than
property crimes (Browning et al. 2010).
Tract-level explanatory variables. Our primary
independent variables are joblessness and pov-
erty rates at the tract level. We measure jobless-
ness as an index. Our joblessness index
combines measures of the percentage of the
civilian workforce age 16 and over who are
unemployed (unemployment rate), the percent-
age of the civilian workforce age 16 to 64 who
are unemployed or not in the labor force (job-
less rate), the proportion of the employed civil-
ian population employed in the six occupations
with the lowest mean incomes (secondary sec-
tor workers),2 and the proportion of the
employed civilian population age 16 and over in
management, professional, and related occupa-
tions (percentage professionals and managers,
reverse coded) (Cronbach’s α = .85). Our defi-
nition of joblessness attempts to approximate
Wilson’s conceptualization of “new
Dollar et al. 347
urban poverty” by taking into consideration
unemployment, labor force attachment, and
the absence of high-paying jobs. Likewise, the
index extends previous empirical conceptions
of joblessness as a measure of labor force
participation (Krivo and Peterson 2000). Our
joblessness index is constructed as a regression-
based factor score that has a mean of 0 and stan-
dard deviation of 1 for the entire sample. Like a
z-score, positive, higher values on the jobless-
ness index indicate that a tract experiences more
problems of joblessness while negative, lower
values suggest that a tract has fewer issues
(DiStefano, Zhu, and Mindrila 2009).
We define poverty as the percentage of the
population at or below the official poverty level
in 1999. We first use poverty as an explanatory
variable in our models. We also use this opera-
tionalization of poverty to separate neighbor-
hoods affected by the longstanding problems of
economic scarcity. Prior ecological studies
define high poverty areas as those areas where
40 or more percent of the population lives within
the official poverty guidelines (e.g., Jargowsky
and Bane 1990; Ricketts and Sawhill 1988;
Wacquant and Wilson 1989). Areas of moderate
poverty are marked by 20 to 39 percent of the
population living in poverty, and areas of low
poverty are identified by less than 20 percent of
the population being impoverished (Krivo and
Peterson 1996).
Tract-level covariates.  We control for other rel-
evant factors that influence neighborhood
crime levels. We first introduce two demo-
graphic measures: age structure and sex ratio.
Age structure is measured as the percentage of
the population that is aged 15 to 29. The sex
ratio of neighborhoods is defined as the ratio of
males to females living in the area (Glick,
Beresford, and Heer 1963; Messner and Samp-
son 1991; Schoen 1981; Wilson 1987).
We then take into account residential and
family stability within neighborhoods that may
affect crime (e.g., Dollar et al. 2017; Sampson
1987; Sampson and Groves 1989; Shaw and
McKay 1942; Wilson 1996). Residential insta-
bility calculates the standardized average score
of the percentage of rentals and the percentage
of the population that has moved in the last 5
years. Percentage divorced measures the pro-
portion of men aged 15 and over who are
divorced.
Prior theory and research further suggest
that racial-ethnic heterogeneity may positively
influence crime rates (e.g., Sampson and Graif
2009). Wilson’s work focuses primarily on
African American neighborhoods. However,
the United States has seen a significant increase
in other minority populations, especially from
Asia and Latin America. We approximate
racial and ethnic heterogeneity in an area by
incorporating a tract-level measure of the per-
centage of the population that identifies as
non-Latino, black; non-Latino, Asian; or non-
Latino and of some Other race. To comprehen-
sively examine the role of immigration, we
computed an immigration index that includes
four variables: percentage Hispanic, percent-
age foreign-born, percentage new immigrants,
and percentage linguistically isolated.
Finally, given recent research on the rela-
tionships between youth institutional engage-
ment and homicide, we include tract-level
measures of these variables (e.g., Dollar et al.
2017; P. L. McCall et al. 2013). Consistent
with these studies, we measure the engage-
ment of young adults using two variables: the
percentage of persons enrolled in college and
the percentage of persons age 15 to 29 who are
married with a spouse present. These measures
capture dimensions of engagement with edu-
cational and family institutions.3
Metropolitan-area-level controls.  Our models also
adjust for the characteristics of metropolitan
areas. We add in controls for the log of the area
of the metropolitan area in square meters and its
logged total population. Prior ecological studies
suggest socioeconomic and racial inequality in a
metropolitan are influences social relations at
lower levels of aggregation, especially in urban
crime (e.g., Hipp 2011; Massey and Denton
1993; Wilson 1987). We first introduce metro-
politan area Gini Index to estimate household
income inequality. This index measures the dis-
tribution of household income among the popu-
lation of the metropolitan area. We also adjust
for segregation between racial and ethnic groups.
Ethnoracial segregation is operationalized using
348 Social Currents 6(4)
two dissimilarity indices that indicate the even-
ness in the distribution of non-Hispanic, whites
and blacks and non-Hispanic, whites and His-
panic/Latinos across census tracts within met-
ropolitan areas (Peterson and Krivo 2000). The
dissimilarity indices are calculated for two
groups at a time and estimate how much one
group (i.e., Hispanic/Latinos or blacks) would
have to relocate to have the same proportional
representation in a neighborhood as the other
group (i.e., white) (Iceland and Weinberg
2002:119).
We then introduce three variables to capture
the characteristics of the labor force in a metro-
politan area. We first estimate the availability
of jobs in and around the area. An employment
change ratio identifies the change in the num-
ber of employees in a metropolitan area
between 1990 and 2000. A suburban employ-
ment ratio estimates the percentage of workers
who work in the suburban ring of the metro-
politan area divided by the percentage of the
area’s total population that lives in this subur-
ban ring in 2000. We also account for the
diversity of jobs in a metropolitan area.
Industrial diversity is measured by a dissimi-
larity index examining employment across 20
industries within a metropolitan area relative
to employment in these industries throughout
the nation. Last, we construct a categorical
variable to identify the region of the country in
which a metropolitan area is located. We spec-
ify whether the metropolitan area is located in
the U.S. South, North, West, or Midwest.
Analytic Strategy
Given the importance of capturing Wilson’s
claims concerning the influence of joblessness
on crime, our analytical approach has two
stages. First, we introduce a multilevel statisti-
cal model that adjusts for all neighborhood and
metropolitan-area-level conditions related to
homicide and violent crime.4 Our model also
takes into account the possibility of spatial
autocorrelation, or the nonrandom distribution
of crime patterns given the proximity of tracts
to one another. This model is used to assess
whether joblessness has a distinct role from
poverty in contributing crime outcomes.
Second, we estimate another set of spatially
adjusted, multilevel models to assess the
impacts of joblessness on violent crime in
areas of low, moderate, and severe problems of
poverty. We anticipate that joblessness may be
more criminogenic in high poverty neighbor-
hoods relative to neighborhoods with less pov-
erty due to Wilson’s articulation of jobless
poverty and its devastating consequences.
Our multilevel models estimate the share in
the variance of violent crime rates related to
neighborhood conditions, such as joblessness
and poverty. The models take geographical
hierarchies into consideration, such that tracts
as the unit of analysis (Level 1) are nested
within metropolitan areas as aggregated con-
textual units (Level 2). We specifically intro-
duce a generalized linear mixed model
(GLMM) that adjusts for metropolitan-level
effects by allowing the intercepts of Level 1
factors to vary while keeping slopes of Level 1
factors fixed. As a class of models, GLMM
extends the linear mixed effects approach by
adjusting for different distributions of one’s
outcome variables (West, Welch, and Galecki
2014). Our GLMMs use the negative binomial
distribution because our outcomes involve
counts, and our data display overdispersion
(i.e., the variance of our response variables
exceeds the mean) that violates assumptions of
the Poisson distribution (Raudenbush and
Bryk 2002). Correction for overdispersion
through the negative binomial distribution
may then provide more accurate estimates of
regression coefficients and standard errors
(Ismail and Jemain 2007). We finally adjust
our negative binomial regression models with
an exposure variable of total population in the
census tract.
Our GLMMs can further take into account
the possibility of spatial autocorrelation.
Neighborhoods have the characteristic of
being more socially and culturally similar to
units in close proximity to them. As such,
models may be misspecified, and estimates of
predictor effects can be biased if spatial pat-
terns are not taken into consideration (Anselin
et al. 2000; Baller et al. 2001; Ludwig et al.
2008; Sampson 2008). We use the spdep pack-
age in R to examine spatial autocorrelation in
Dollar et al. 349
our data (Bivand, Pebesma, and Gómez-Rubio
2008). Spatial autocorrelation is detected by
identifying the nearest first neighbor of a cen-
sus tract among all census tracts from all met-
ropolitan areas. We identify neighbors based
on the centroids of the census tract and require
neighbors to be found between 0 and two times
the minimum distance that all centroids would
have a distance-based neighbor. This upper-
bound of interpoint distance eliminates any no-
neighborhood census tracts from our national
sample (Bivand 2018).
After locating nearest distance neighbor-
hoods, we inspect the homicide and violent
offenses for spatial autocorrelation. We first
complete a global Moran’s I test that evaluates
deviations from the mean outcome and then
spatially weights such deviations based on
knowledge of neighboring tracts in our sam-
ple. Evidence of spatial autocorrelation was
significant (global Moran’s I = 0.105, p < .01
for homicide offenses; 0.144, p < .01 for other
violent offenses), indicating that crime is not
randomly distributed across tracts. We supple-
ment this global test with local Moran’s I per-
mutation tests for each census tract based on a
spatially weighted matrix of neighbors.
Approximately 42 percent of tracts (n = 2,738)
showed spatial dependence in violent crime
incidents and about a quarter of tracts (n =
1,581) displayed spatial patterns in homicide
incidents (i.e., local Moran’s I values were sta-
tistically significant at p < .05). These local
tests mean that crime outcomes in census tracts
are affected by incidents in neighboring tracts.
These tests highlight the need to adjust for spa-
tial relationships in our models of fatal and
nonfatal violent crime.
Given the evidence of spatial autocorrela-
tion, we construct spatially lagged dependent
variables based on weighted average of counts
of homicide or violent crime incidents in neigh-
boring tracts. We add these spatial weights to
the full set of control variables to reduce poten-
tial biases in our estimates from spatial autocor-
relation. This approach allows us to effectively
address local and global forms of spatial
autocorrelation, as well as provide a more inter-
pretable spatial lag process (e.g., Lambert,
Brown, and Florax 2010). We run GLMMs with
the same specification to predict homicide and
other violent crimes in all tracts and then in
tracts with varying levels of poverty.
Results
Table 1 provides summary statistics of our tract-
level and metropolitan area-level variables. The
first column shows descriptive measures for the
entire analytic sample (n = 6,406) and the
remaining columns present measures for all
variables for tracts with low, moderate, or high
levels of poverty. These three subsamples fea-
ture 3,914 tracts with less than 20 percent living
below the poverty line (low), 1,972 tracts with
20 to 39 percent impoverished population
(moderate), and 520 tracts with 40 percent or
more impoverished population (high). Variation
in crime rates is evident across samples.
Neighborhoods with high levels of poverty have
an average of 3.16 homicides over a three-year
period.5 The number of homicides is lower in
neighborhoods with less poverty, as mid-range
and low poverty areas report an average of 2.62
and 0.73 homicide incidents during this period,
respectively. The average number of homicides
is 1.51 homicides per tract across all neighbor-
hoods. Similar patterns are seen in nonfatal vio-
lent crime. High poverty rates have the highest
number of violent crimes (200 incidents per
tract) compared with mid-range (180 incidents)
and low (73 incidents) poverty tracts.
Tract-level conditions also vary by poverty
level. Joblessness is most pronounced in tracts
with the highest poverty rates. Joblessness is
still common in moderate poverty areas (as
seen in an average joblessness index score
above 0), but it is less so in low poverty areas
(as seen in an average joblessness index score
below 0). Tracts with 40 percent or more of
residents living in poverty have younger and
more female populations. More disadvantaged
neighborhoods also show greater problems of
residential instability. Nonwhite populations
are largest in neighborhoods with high poverty,
but immigration is more common in areas of
moderate rates of poverty. Less impoverished
neighborhoods have higher rates of college
enrollment and marriage among younger
populations.
350 Social Currents 6(4)
The conditions of metropolitan areas are
also presented in Table 1. The size and popula-
tion of metropolitan areas are similar across the
three subsamples of tracts. These metropolitan
areas show comparable levels of income
inequality. Black-white and Hispanic/Latino-
white segregation is slightly higher in metro-
politan areas containing high poverty tracts. All
metropolitan areas have similar suburban
employment ratios and experience changes in
the size of their employed populations between
1990 and 2000, but areas containing high pov-
erty tracts have less diversity in their industries.
Metropolitan areas are distributed similarly
across regions of the United States. In all three
subsamples, about 30 percent of the metropoli-
tan areas are located in the South, 15 percent in
the North, and 26 percent in the West with the
remainder being in the Midwest.
Multilevel Spatial Analysis of
Homicide and Violent Crime Levels
Table 2 reports the estimated effects of poverty
and joblessness on homicide and other violent
crime from spatially adjusted, mixed effects
negative binomial regression models. Estimates
from these multilevel models indicate that job-
lessness is positively related to both violent
crime outcomes (p < .01). Poverty is also con-
sistently associated with fatal and nonfatal vio-
lent crimes (p < .01). The impacts of joblessness
on homicide rates are stronger than those of
poverty (z-score comparison of coefficients for
joblessness and poverty = 7.90). Likewise,
joblessness is more strongly related to robbery,
assault, and rape incidents than poverty itself
(z-score comparison of coefficients for jobless-
ness and poverty = 9.31).
Sociodemographic conditions related to
population characteristics, family, and neigh-
borhood control generally show expected asso-
ciation with violent crime. Having younger,
more male, racially diverse populations and
high divorce rates at the tract level is associated
with increases in both types of violent crime
incidents. The effects of residential instability
are more mixed across outcomes, though non-
fatal violent crime is positively related to
neighborhood turnover. Greater proportions of
college enrollment are linked to reduced homi-
cide and violent crime incidents in neighbor-
hoods. At the metropolitan area level, large
populations are linked to more lethal and non-
lethal incidents. Metropolitan areas with lower
suburban employment ratios appear to show
lower rates of violent crime, though this asso-
ciation is weak relative to other relationships (p
< .05).
Violent Crime by Neighborhoods’
Poverty Level
Because high poverty neighborhoods experi-
ence more homicides and violent crime inci-
dents relative to moderate and low poverty
neighborhoods, a priority is to understand the
effects of joblessness on crime rates across
poverty levels. We introduce separate spatially
adjusted, multilevel negative binomial regres-
sions for our three subsamples of tracts to
understand if high poverty areas differ from
moderate and low poverty areas in crime pat-
terns. Table 3 first reports estimates predicting
homicide count for three types of neighbor-
hoods differentiated by overall level of pov-
erty. Across all poverty levels, joblessness and
homicide incidents are positively related. The
effect of joblessness is similar in magnitude
across models. Conversely, poverty has less
consistent effects on homicide among the three
neighborhood types. Within low poverty areas,
an increase in poverty rates is associated with
significant increases in homicides. This rela-
tionship also appears in moderate poverty
areas, but this effect of poverty is less strong
compared with the impact estimated for low
poverty areas (z-score comparison of coeffi-
cients for poverty rate = −4.13). The associa-
tion between poverty and homicide is likewise
weaker in high poverty areas.
Table 4 presents spatially adjusted, multilevel
negative binomial regression estimates of the
effect of joblessness, poverty, and other controls
on nonfatal violent crime by poverty level. Our
estimates again show joblessness is a key factor
associated with violent crime for all neighbor-
hoods. For all neighborhoods, joblessness has a
 Table 1.  Descriptive Statistics of Variables by Level of Poverty in Tracts.

All areas Low poverty areas Moderate poverty areas High poverty areas

Standard Standard Standard Standard

Variable Mean deviation Mean deviation Mean deviation Mean deviation
Tract level
  Number of Homicides 1.51 2.46 0.73 1.39 2.62 3.10 3.16 3.42
  Number of Violent Crimes 116.07 116.39 72.82 75.47 179.71 126.15 200.18 165.02
  Joblessness Index 0.00 1.00 −0.59 0.63 0.73 0.63 1.62 0.74
  Poverty (%) 18.61 13.78 9.51 5.29 28.56 5.53 49.33 8.46
  Age 15–29 Population (%) 23.30 8.23 21.55 6.88 25.74 7.85 27.18 13.61
  Sex Ratio 1.02 0.25 1.02 0.23 1.04 0.25 0.93 0.35
  Residential Instability 0.02 0.87 −0.21 0.84 0.30 0.77 0.74 0.71
  Divorced Males (%) 9.80 4.33 9.57 3.79 10.17 4.82 10.07 5.84
  Nonwhite Population (%) 33.05 30.76 22.74 22.99 46.33 33.64 60.35 34.24
  Immigration Index 44.56 48.05 33.39 31.52 63.95 60.81 55.16 66.93
  Enrolled in College (%) 9.06 7.89 9.01 4.93 8.86 8.99 10.22 16.64
  Age 15–24 Population Married (%) 8.27 7.01 8.48 7.01 8.36 6.97 6.43 6.85
N 6,406 3,914 1,972 520  
Metropolitan Area Level
  Area (log square meters) 13.98 0.92 13.98 0.92 13.99 0.93 14.14 0.83
  Population (log) 22.55 0.91 22.55 0.91 22.57 0.93 22.70 0.85
  White/Black Dissimilarity Index 58.21 12.86 58.21 12.86 58.38 12.98 59.64 12.85
  White/Hispanic Dissimilarity Index 44.57 11.20 44.57 11.20 44.59 11.16 45.09 11.24
  Gini Index 0.45 0.04 0.45 0.04 0.45 0.04 0.44 0.02
  Suburban Employment Ratio 0.71 0.12 0.71 0.12 0.71 0.13 0.72 0.12
  Industrial Diversity Index 8.90 3.25 8.90 3.25 8.88 3.28 8.61 2.96
  Employment Change 25.15 16.37 25.15 16.37 25.15 16.60 25.19 17.35
 Region
  South 30.19 30.19 29.41 31.81  
  West 26.42 26.41 25.49 27.27  
  North 15.09 15.09 15.86 15.90  
N 53 53 51 44  

351
Note. Violent crime includes aggravated assault, forcible rape, and robbery. Poverty levels are classified at the tract level. Low poverty area = less than 20 percent impoverished.
Moderate poverty area = 20 to 39 percent impoverished. High poverty area = 40 percent or more impoverished.
 Table 2.  Multilevel Negative Binomial Regression Estimates of Homicide and Violent Crime.

352
Homicide Violent crime

95% confidence 95% confidence

Variable B Standard error interval β Standard error interval
Tract level
  Joblessness Index 0.306** 0.036 [0.235, 0.377] 0.189** 0.018 [0.153, 0.224]
  Poverty (%) 0.021** 0.002 [0.016, 0.025] 0.021** 0.001 [0.018, 0.023]
  Age 15–29 Population (%) 0.026** 0.005 [0.017, 0.035] 0.013** 0.002 [0.009, 0.017]
  Sex Ratio 0.402** 0.066 [0.273, 0.531] 0.770** 0.045 [0.681, 0.860]
  Residential Instability −0.104** 0.030 [−0.163,–0.046] 0.119** 0.014 [0.092, 0.146]
  Divorced Males (%) 0.045** 0.004 [0.036, 0.054] 0.047** 0.002 [0.043, 0.051]
  Nonwhite Population (%) 0.014** 0.001 [0.013, 0.016] 0.009** 0.0004 [0.008, 0.010]
  Immigration Index 0.003** 0.001 [0.002, 0.004] 0.001** 0.0003 [0.000, 0.001]
  Enrolled in College (%) −0.027** 0.004 [−0.034,–0.019] −0.016** 0.002 [−0.020,–0.013]
  Age 15–24 Population Married (%) 0.002 0.003 [−0.004, 0.008] −0.002 0.001 [−0.005, 0.000]
  Spatial Weight −0.098 0.097 [−0.288, 0.093] −0.0004 0.002 [−0.004, 0.004]
Metropolitan Area Level
  Area (log square meters) 0.001 0.100 [−0.196, 0.197] 0.173 0.117 [−0.056, 0.402]
  Population (log) 0.321** 0.085 [0.154, 0.487] 0.196* 0.090 [0.019, 0.372]
  White/Black Dissimilarity Index 0.017* 0.007 [0.002, 0.031] 0.005 0.008 [−0.010, 0.020]
  White/Hispanic Dissimilarity Index 0.001 0.005 [−0.009, 0.011] 0.001 0.006 [−0.010, 0.013]
  Gini Index −4.977** 1.877 [−8.657,–1.298] −0.716 1.658 [−3.965, 2.534]
  Suburban Employment Ratio −1.393* 0.640 [−2.648,–0.138] −1.667* 0.744 [−3.124,–0.209]
  Industrial Diversity Index 0.014 0.016 [−0.018, 0.047] −0.023 0.019 [−0.060, 0.015]
  Employment Change −0.009* 0.004 [−0.017,–0.001] −0.007 0.005 [−0.016, 0.002]
 Region
  South −0.084 0.157 [−0.391, 0.224] −0.047 0.170 [−0.381, 0.287]
  West 0.020 0.207 [−0.385, 0.426] −0.164 0.225 [−0.604, 0.277]
  North −0.128 0.190 [−0.500, 0.244] 0.082 0.203 [−0.315, 0.479]
Overdispersion −0.799** 0.052 −1.183** 0.019  
Variance Components 0.070** 0.023 0.113** 0.041  
Tract-level N 6,406 6,406  
Metropolitan-area-level N 53 53  

Note. Violent crime includes aggravated assault, forcible rape, and robbery.
*p value = .05, **p value = .01.
 Table 3.  Multilevel Negative Binomial Regression Estimates of Homicide by Poverty Level.

Low poverty area Moderate poverty area High poverty area

Standard 95% confidence Standard 95% confidence Standard 95% confidence

Variable B error interval β error interval β error interval
Tract Level  
  Joblessness Index 0.288** 0.075 [0.140, 0.435] 0.271** 0.053 [0.167, 0.375] 0.257** 0.073 [0.114, 0.400]
  Poverty (%) 0.057** 0.008 [0.041, 0.072] 0.018** 0.005 [0.009, 0.028] 0.012 0.006 [−0.001, 0.024]
  Age 15–29 Population (%) 0.017* 0.008 [0.002, 0.033] 0.012 0.008 [−0.003, 0.027] 0.00003 0.011 [−0.022, 0.022]
  Sex Ratio 0.401** 0.095 [0.215, 0.586] 0.284** 0.108 [0.072, 0.496] 0.585** 0.148 [0.295, 0.874]
  Residential Instability −0.078 0.056 [−0.189, 0.032] −0.077 0.043 [−0.161, 0.007] −0.238** 0.083 [−0.401,–0.075]
  Divorced Males (%) 0.056** 0.008 [0.040,0.073] 0.018** 0.007 [0.005, 0.031] 0.012 0.01 [−0.007, 0.030]
  Nonwhite Population (%) 0.014** 0.001 [0.012, 0.017] 0.009** 0.001 [0.006, 0.011] 0.008** 0.003 [0.002, 0.014]
  Immigration Index −0.0005 0.001 [−0.003,0.002] 0.0004 0.001 [−0.001, 0.002] −0.002 0.002 [−0.006, 0.002]
  Enrolled in College (%) −0.023** 0.008 [−0.040,–0.007] −0.028** 0.006 [−0.040,–0.016] −0.01 0.009 [−0.026, 0.007]
  Age 15–24 Population Married (%) 0.001 0.005 [−0.008, 0.010] −0.002 0.005 [−0.011, 0.007] 0.002 0.008 [−0.014, 0.018]
  Spatial Weight 0.006 0.088 [−0.167, 0.178] 0.0003 0.084 [−0.164, 0.165] 0.234* 0.101 [0.035, 0.432]
Metropolitan Area Level
  Area (log square meters) 0.115 0.108 [−0.096, 0.327] −0.004 0.109 [−0.218, 0.209] −0.036 0.165 [−0.359, 0.287]
  Population (log) 0.210* 0.088 [0.038, 0.382] 0.302** 0.098 [0.109, 0.494] 0.201 0.158 [−0.108, 0.510]
  White/Black Dissimilarity Index 0.005 0.007 [−0.009, 0.019] 0.016 0.009 [−0.001, 0.034] −0.009 0.014 [−0.037, 0.019]
  White/Hispanic Dissimilarity Index 0.004 0.005 [−0.006, 0.015] −0.001 0.005 [−0.012, 0.009] −0.001 0.007 [−0.014, 0.013]
  Gini Index −1.890 2.016 [−5.842, 2.062] −7.110** 2.52 [−12.050,–2.171] −1.951 4.13 [−10.046, 6.144]
  Suburban Employment Ratio −1.1996 0.695 [−2.562, 0.163] −1.390* 0.681 [−2.725,–0.054] 1.446 1.117 [−0.743, 3.636]
  Industrial Diversity Index 0.012 0.016 [−0.020, 0.044] 0.018 0.017 [−0.016, 0.052] −0.005 0.023 [−0.051, 0.040]
  Employment Change −0.003 0.004 [−0.011, 0.004] −0.008 0.004 [−0.016, 0.000] −0.0002 0.006 [−0.011, 0.011]
 Region
  South −0.062 0.167 [−0.389, 0.265] −0.065 0.166 [−0.391, 0.260] 0.183 0.256 [−0.319, 0.685]
  West −0.057 0.211 [−0.470, 0.357] 0.086 0.22 [−0.346, 0.518] 0.261 0.345 [−0.415, 0.936]
  North −0.297 0.215 [−0.719, 0.125] −0.022 0.183 [−0.380, 0.337] −0.158 0.257 [−0.662, 0.346]
Overdispersion −0.497** 0.088 −1.038** 0.076 −1.137** 0.147  
Variance Components 0.046* 0.021 0.051** 0.020 0.032 0.025  
Tract-level N 3,914 1,972 520  
Metropolitan-area-level N 53 51 44  

Note. Low poverty area = less than 20 percent impoverished. Moderate poverty area = 20 to 39 percent impoverished. High poverty area = 40 percent or more impoverished.

353
*p value = .05. **p value = .01.
 Table 4.  Multilevel Negative Binomial Regression Estimates of Violent Crime by Poverty Level.

354
Low poverty area Moderate poverty area High poverty area

Standard 95% confidence Standard 95% confidence Standard 95% confidence

Variable B error interval β error interval β error interval
Tract Level
  Joblessness Index 0.231** 0.029 [0.173, 0.288] 0.099** 0.025 [0.050, 0.149] 0.156** 0.042 [0.074, 0.237]
  Poverty (%) 0.048** 0.003 [0.042, 0.054] 0.026** 0.002 [0.021, 0.030] 0.002 0.004 [−0.005, 0.009]
  Age 15–29 Population (%) 0.012** 0.003 [0.006, 0.018] −0.015** 0.003 [−0.022,–0.008] −0.002 0.006 [−0.014, 0.010]
  Sex Ratio 0.538** 0.080 [0.381, 0.696] 0.725** 0.058 [0.612, 0.839] 0.578** 0.089 [0.403, 0.752]
  Residential Instability 0.105** 0.020 [0.065, 0.144] 0.131** 0.021 [0.090, 0.172] 0.148** 0.047 [0.055, 0.240]
  Divorced Males (%) 0.047** 0.003 [0.041, 0.053] 0.017** 0.003 [0.011, 0.023] 0.018** 0.005 [0.008, 0.028]
  Nonwhite Population (%) 0.008** 0.001 [0.007, 0.009] 0.004** 0.001 [0.003, 0.006] 0.001 0.002 [−0.002, 0.004]
  Immigration Index −0.001* 0.001 [−0.002,–0.000] −0.001 0.000 [−0.002, 0.000] −0.004** 0.001 [−0.006,–0.002]
  Enrolled in College (%) −0.015** 0.003 [−0.021,–0.009] −0.004 0.003 [−0.009, 0.001] −0.016** 0.005 [−0.026,–0.007]
  Age 15–24 Population Married (%) −0.002 0.002 [−0.005, 0.002] −0.007** 0.002 [−0.011,–0.003] −0.001 0.005 [−0.010, 0.008]
  Spatial Weight 0.003** 0.001 [0.001, 0.005] 0.004** 0.001 [0.002, 0.006] 0.004** 0.001 [0.003, 0.006]
Metropolitan Area Level
  Area (log square meters) 0.162 0.090 [−0.014, 0.337] 0.009 0.086 [−0.159, 0.177] 0.062 0.093 [−0.121, 0.245]
  Population (log) 0.116 0.072 [−0.025, 0.258] 0.158* 0.069 [0.022, 0.294] 0.082 0.088 [−0.090, 0.255]
  White/Black Dissimilarity Index 0.002 0.006 [−0.010, 0.014] −0.0003 0.006 [−0.012, 0.011] −0.0004 0.008 [−0.016, 0.015]
  White/Hispanic Dissimilarity Index −0.001 0.005 [−0.009, 0.008] 0.0003 0.004 [−0.008, 0.009] 0.002 0.004 [−0.006, 0.009]
  Gini Index −0.677 1.337 [−3.297, 1.943] −0.677 1.427 [−3.474, 2.121] 0.424 2.290 [−4.064, 4.913]
  Suburban Employment Ratio −1.319* 0.575 [−2.445,–0.192] −0.556 0.530 [−1.594, 0.483] −0.204 0.635 [−1.448, 1.040]
  Industrial Diversity Index −0.007 0.015 [−0.036, 0.022] −0.009 0.013 [−0.035, 0.017] 0.0004 0.014 [−0.026, 0.027]
  Employment Change −0.004 0.003 [−0.011, 0.003] −0.00004 0.003 [−0.006, 0.006] 0.003 0.003 [−0.004, 0.009]
 Region
  South −0.034 0.137 [−0.301, 0.234] −0.047 0.126 [−0.294, 0.201] −0.092 0.146 [−0.378, 0.193]
  West −0.126 0.179 [−0.478, 0.225] −0.106 0.168 [−0.434, 0.223] −0.005 0.193 [−0.383, 0.374]
  North −0.037 0.165 [−0.360, 0.285] 0.121 0.142 [−0.157, 0.400] −0.071 0.146 [−0.357, 0.214]
Overdispersion −1.107** 0.024 −1.588** 0.033 −1.450** 0.065  
Variance Components 0.067** 0.017 0.049** 0.014 0.013 0.009  
Tract-level N 3,914 1,972 520  
Metropolitan-area-level N 53 51 44  

Note. Violent crime includes aggravated assault, forcible rape, and robbery. Low poverty area = less than 20 percent impoverished. Moderate poverty area = 20 to 39 percent
impoverished. High poverty area = 40 percent or more impoverished.
*p value = .05. **p value = .01.
Dollar et al. 355
strong, independent association with nonfatal
violent offenses. This connection is greater than
poverty alone across neighborhoods. The data
indicate that poverty does not elevate violent
crimes after taking into account joblessness and
other conditions in the most severely impover-
ished areas. Joblessness plays a similar role in
shaping violent crime in high poverty areas rela-
tive to moderate poverty areas (z-score compari-
son of coefficients for joblessness = 1.16) and
relative to low poverty areas (−1.47 z-score
comparison of coefficients for joblessness).
Discussion and Conclusion
Wilson’s (1996, 1999) scholarship identifies a
“new urban poverty” associated with chang-
ing, enduring joblessness. What made this new
poverty distinct from earlier conditions of pov-
erty in urban communities was the distinctive
influence of joblessness, or the presence of
jobless poverty. Wilson (1996), in fact, argued
that while poverty had long been a damaging
feature of many inner cities, growing levels of
joblessness resulted in an isolating existence
and led to various social disorders, including
violent crime.
This study offers the first empirical investi-
gation of how joblessness influences homicide
and nonfatal violent incidents in U.S. neighbor-
hoods, separately from poverty and other envi-
ronmental conditions. The data indicate several
noteworthy findings. First, consistent with
other studies on neighborhood crime, we find
nonrandom distributions of violent offenses,
thus indicating crime has spillover effects on
neighboring communities. Second, and perhaps
more importantly, we find support for Wilson’s
(1996, 1999, 2003) hypotheses that joblessness
has a strong relationship with crime relative to
poverty alone. Employing spatially adjusted,
multilevel regression analyses, we find jobless-
ness has an independent effect on homicide and
violent crime after taking into account varying
levels of poverty, relevant community char-
acteristics, and metropolitan-area-level predic-
tors. Importantly, joblessness has a greater
impact on crime than poverty alone. These
results empirically support Wilson’s character-
ization of joblessness as a “new poverty” that
contributes to crime.
We further estimated the impacts on job-
lessness on crime across neighborhoods with
varying degrees of poverty. Our results indi-
cate that joblessness consistently and posi-
tively contributes to more homicides and
violent crime in communities. Poverty rates
are less influential than joblessness in shaping
violent crime in all neighborhoods. Moreover,
poverty alone does not significantly change
violent crime incidents in high poverty areas
after adjusting for joblessness and other condi-
tions. These results then provide evidence that
joblessness primarily drives differences in
homicide and violent crime outcomes in highly
impoverished neighborhoods, relative to less
impoverished poverty communities.
Notwithstanding its contribution, the current
examination has some limitations. First, our
findings depend on modeling assumptions,
such as the proper measurement of variables
and correct specifications of regression models.
Spatial dependence may be addressed through
other statistical strategies, such as the correc-
tion of correlational structures, and yield differ-
ent results from incorporating spatial lags as
control variables into GLMMs (Lambert et al.
2010). Our measure of joblessness focuses on
employment and labor force attachment and
does not capture all aspects of jobless poverty.
For instance, Wilson (1987, 1996) argues that
the disappearance of work intensifies social
isolation, resulting in a shift of cultural values
whereby poor, jobless communities replace
dominant norms of achieving success with
“subcultural” norms that pursue alternative
forms of status and respect. Cultural responses
to these joblessness conditions shape neighbor-
hood organization and may increase criminal
involvement (e.g., Anderson 1999; Stewart and
Simons 2006; Young 2004). Our estimated
effects of joblessness on crime may then be
biased and likely underestimated. Likewise,
our research may understate the contributions
of suburbanization processes to social prob-
lems in urban neighborhoods. The confluence
of land use and housing regulations, new high-
ways and infrastructure, and exodus of the mid-
dle class from urban centers created
unprecedented development in the suburbs
(Squires and Kubrin 2005). An empirical study
by Browning and colleagues (2010)
356 Social Currents 6(4)
underscores that commercial and residential
density affects violent crime outcomes in com-
munities around Columbus, Ohio. Land use
regulations vary across urban centers, however,
and our data lack information on commercial
and residential density to further test these land
use claims. Our analysis also may not capture
other restructurings of the American economy,
such as the relocation of businesses from cities
to lower-cost areas in the United States or the
outsourcing of operations to other countries
(Bluestone and Harrison 2001).
Our study points to several opportunities
for additional research. First, our results derive
from a snapshot of neighborhood and metro-
politan area conditions in the 2000s. The
impacts of joblessness may vary in more recent
times when crime rates have decreased. Future
research may also explore how the availability
of jobs affects different types of crime, as vio-
lent crime may be motivated by expressive
concerns (e.g., Logan and Messner 1987),
while property crime may be driven by more
instrumental reasons (e.g., Agnew 2001). In
addition, the effects of poverty and joblessness
on crime may vary by race. Although Wilson
argues that deindustrialization disproportion-
ately affected blacks by eradicating upwardly
mobile opportunities and life chances, he
maintained that poverty, joblessness, and its
relation to crime should not be conceptualized
or measured as a race-specific issue (e.g.,
Wilson 1987, 1996, 1999). However, subse-
quent research on poverty and joblessness
might further disaggregate criminal outcomes
by race and ethnicity to identify and under-
stand any differences across racial and ethnic
populations.
The present article finds that area-level
poverty and joblessness are consistently yet
uniquely related to neighborhood crime. Over
half a century ago, a “war” on poverty was
declared. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau
indicate that since that time, the national pov-
erty rate has declined by only 5 percent. What
is more, well over half of the persons currently
living in poverty fall between the ages of 18 to
64, which are crucial working ages (Desilver
2014). As discussed earlier, Wilson views the
formal labor market not only as a viable means
of financial stability but also as a crucial inte-
grating structure given its ability to provide
individuals with consistent routines, personal
and social discipline, and self-efficacy. As
such, high areal levels of poverty and a lack of
labor market engagement opportunities influ-
ence quality of life from a structural, cultural,
and psychological standpoint. Wilson (1999)
posits that solutions to the poverty-joblessness
nexus on crime must involve increasing liv-
able-wage jobs, especially among low-skilled,
inner-city residents. In other words, crimino-
genic cultural and psychological maladapta-
tions stem from ecological conditions. The
present analysis underscores that efforts to pri-
oritize structural resolutions must consider the
unique effects that poverty and joblessness
may have as each appears to distinctively
influence violence.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of
interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the
research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Notes
1. Tracts with nonmissing data differ from those
with missing data. For instance, our analytic
sample has higher homicide rates than the
full sample; however, we find similar counts
of other violent crime. Nonmissing informa-
tion tracts also have larger, more divorced, and
racially diverse populations. Missing informa-
tion tracts have less college enrollment. Both
types of tracts have similar sex ratios, levels
of residential instability, and marriage rates
among younger populations. At the metro-
politan area level, there are no statistically
significant differences in the population, size,
segregation, or labor force characteristics
of the full (i.e., 62 metropolitans areas) and
analytic sample (i.e., 53 metropolitan areas).
Missing metropolitan areas are less likely to be
in the North or West, and more likely to be in
the South, however. As a result, the findings
presented herein may better generalize to tracts
Dollar et al. 357
with more severe problems of homicide and
disadvantage.
2. These six categories include health care sup-
port; food preparation and serving-related
occupations; building and grounds cleaning
and maintenance; personal care and service;
farming, fishing, and forestry; and material
moving (see Peterson and Krivo 2000).
3. We exclude youth employment and participa-
tion in the armed forces as forms of institutional
engagement to avoid repetitive measurement
of labor force activity of this population.
4. As a robustness check, we ran a set of multi-
level models with cities as our Level 2 unit of
analysis. These models can account for racial
and socioeconomic inequalities within cit-
ies, but they cannot control for employment
change or the suburban employment ratio as
metropolitan area conditions. Our substantive
findings do not change depending on whether
we use cities or metropolitan areas as a higher
level of aggregation. Still, we prefer using met-
ropolitan areas as our Level 2 unit of analysis
because we can account for industry character-
istics outside of the city itself and, thus, take
into account Wilson’s observations on the exo-
dus of jobs to suburban areas.
5. Approximately 48 percent of all census tracts
had no reported homicides. Less than 1 percent
(0.31 percent) of census tract had zero-reported
aggravated assault, forcible rape, or robbery
incidents.
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