Report: Boom Benefits African-American Men

The economic boom of the 1990s translates into more jobs, higher wages, and a lower crime rate for young African-American men whose lack of education and job skills, coupled with discrimination in hiring, have traditionally kept them out of the economic mainstream. So say professors William Rodgers '86 and Richard Freeman '64, who made headlines in The Sunday New York Times and Newsweek for their study published in April by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which documents the gains less-educated men have made during the current economic boom.

Rodgers, an economics professor at William & Mary, is compiling a book on this subject and wrote a chapterwith Freeman, a Harvard professor and one of the nation's top experts on blackyouth unemployment. The two have collaborated since Freeman supervised Rodgers's Ph.D. work a decade ago. They next intend to broaden their study of economic expansion and African-American workers.

Rodgers '86, top, Freeman '64 continue a collaboration begun a decade ago.