Job Access and Work Among Autoless Adults in Welfare in Los Angeles

Lack of auto ownership is frequently cited as a major barrier to welfare recipients’ transition to work. The importance of accessible job opportunities in employment outcomes has not, however, been empirically analyzed for welfare recipients who do not own automobiles. This study analyzes the effect of job accessibility on employment outcomes for autoless adults on welfare in Los Angeles. Two important components of this analysis are the computation of job-access measures that take into account travel modes and the incorporation of the job-access measures into multinomial logit models. The job-access measures show a considerable disparity in the number of spatially accessible job opportunities for auto users and transit users. The multinomial logit analysis indicates that for autoless welfare recipients, improving transit-based job accessibility significantly enhances the employment probability, although it does not make a significant difference in the probability of earning $4,500 or more per year. The analysis further reveals that the job-access effect is greater for autoless welfare recipients than for auto-owning recipients. Certain policy implications suggested by the empirical findings are discussed.