Jobs in Springfield, Massachusetts: understanding and remedying the causes of low resident employment rates

Marques Benton, Lynn E. Browne, Prabal Chakrabarti, DeAnna Green, Yolanda Kodrzycki, Ana Patricia Munoz, Richard Walker and Bo Zhao

No 09-11, Public Policy Discussion Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Abstract: As part of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's commitment to supporting efforts to revitalize the economy of Springfield, Massachusetts, this paper explores the causes of and potential remedies for the city's low resident employment rates. When compared to the state as a whole and to other midsize New England cities, the share of employed city residents is low, particularly for residents of downtown Springfield and its nearby neighborhoods. By analyzing the availability of jobs across Springfield's various neighborhoods and in nearby towns and cities, this paper's goal is to learn why so few Springfield residents are employed, and thus to identify policy priorities to increase employment. This study finds that solving Springfield's low resident employment rates will require a combination of new job creation, improved informational and physical access to jobs, and strengthening the citizenry's job skills.

Keywords: Job creation - Massachusetts; Unemployment - Massachusetts; Economic conditions - Massachusetts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/ppdp/2009/ppdp0911.htm (text/html)
http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/ppdp/2009/ppdp0911.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedbpp:09-11

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Public Policy Discussion Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Spozio ().