Welfare recipients face a number of obstacles to making the transition from welfare to work. One is their geographical separation from employment opportunities: many welfare recipients live in 'job-poor' neighbourhoods far from employment for which they are qualified. Combining administrative data on welfare recipients and employment in Los Angeles with data from the 1990 decennial census, we show that greater access to local jobs in low-wage firms increases the likelihood that welfare recipients find employment in neighbourhood jobs. Moreover, welfare recipients who have long commutes earn less than those who find work closer to home, contrary to the pattern for most workers. These findings demonstrate that proximity to low-wage jobs benefits welfare recipients through reduced commuting expenses and increased earnings.

Beneath the broad umbrella of agreement about transportation's relationship to poverty is considerable discord about the specific nature of the problem and about where and how transportation solutions should be applied. Much of the existing scholarship on this topic focuses on the spatial mismatch hypothesis, the geographic separation between employment and housing. Although this concept has merit, to meet the transportation needs of welfare recipients, policy makers must move beyond conventional notions of the spatial mismatch hypothesis. This article draws from theoretical and empirical scholarship on travel behavior, transportation infrastructure, poverty, gender studies, and residential segregation and recommends transportation policies to better connect welfare recipients to employment.

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While much of the scholarly literature on immigrants' travel focuses on transit use, the newest arrivals to the United States make over twelve times as many trips by carpool as by transit. Using the 2001 National Household Travel Survey and multinomial logit mode choice models, we examine the determinants of carpooling. In particular, we focus on the likelihood of carpooling among immigrants-carpooling both within and across households. After controlling for relevant determinants of carpooling, we find that immigrants are far more likely to form household carpools than native-born adults and also are more likely than the native-born to form external carpools (outside the household). Moreover, when faced with the options of carpooling and public transit, immigrants-even recent arrivals-appear to prefer carpools over transit more strongly than the native born.

The landmark 1996 welfare reform legislation required welfare participants to transition rapidly into the labor market. However, many welfare participants have not fared well in the competition for jobs because they face multiple barriers to employment. This study draws on data from a California job readiness survey of welfare participants to examine the effects of employment barriers on male and female welfare participants. The results of logistic modeling show that individual barriers negatively affect employment outcomes and that the likelihood of employment declines with an increasing number of barriers. These findings suggest that economic development programs intended to aid welfare participants in making a successful transition into the labor market must move beyond piecemeal approaches to meeting the needs of welfare participants and include comprehensive strategies that address multiple barriers to employment.

Some studies suggest that, among other obstacles to employment, welfare participants face a spatial separation from jobs and employment-related services. Using data on welfare participants, low-wage jobs, and public transit in Los Angeles County, an examination was made of the relative access that welfare participants have to employment opportunities. The analysis shows that welfare participants’ access to employment varies dramatically depending on their residential location and commute mode. Many welfare participants live in job-rich neighborhoods and are able to reach numerous jobs without difficulty by either car or public transit. Others, however, live in job-poor neighborhoods where a reliance on public transit significantly reduces their access to employment. In these neighborhoods long and unreliable commutes on public transit often severely limit their ability to find and reliably travel to and from work. Therefore, given the distinctly uneven patterns of employment opportunities in metropolitan areas, policies to address the transportation needs of welfare participants should be targeted to reflect the characteristics of the neighborhoods in which welfare participants live.

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In the past decade, there has been much talk about a decline in driving among