Ban-the-Box (BTB) policies intend to help formerly incarcerated individuals find employment by delaying when employers can ask about criminal records. We revisit findings in Doleac and Hansen (2020) showing BTB causes discrimination against minority men. Their results using the Current Population Survey (CPS) are based on very small cells prone to sampling error or spurious treatment effects. We correct miscoded BTB laws and show that estimates using the American Community Survey (ACS) do not have this problem. Using the ACS, we find no evidence of discrimination: employment effects are near zero, precisely estimated, and not economically meaningful.
Given my company’s work, I can’t hire felons convicted of person-to-person crimes. Being forbidden from asking prospective employees about felonies they might have is a net negative to my company in terms of extra time and effort, but I think it’s probably an overall good for society that felons have an interview opportunity to explain their past.
That BTB laws don’t really work to increase ex-con employment doesn’t mean that they’re wrong, but it elevates the argument that laws that don’t work shouldn’t be laws at all.