Social, Economic, Spatial, and Commuting Patterns of Informal Jobholders

A significant number of employees within the United States can be considered "informal" or "off-the-books" workers. These workers, who by definition do not appear in administrative wage records, are distinct from the larger group of private jobholders who do appear in administrative records. However, while socioeconomic and spatial information on these individuals is readily available in standard datasets, such as the 2000 Decennial Census Long Form, it is not possible to identify the informal workers by only using such data because of the lack of accurate, formal wage records. This study takes advantage of firm-based data that originates in Unemployment Insurance administrative wage records linked with the Census Bureau’s household-based data in order to examine informal jobholders by their demographic characteristics as well as their economic, commuting, and spatial location outcomes. In addition this report evaluates whether informal jobholders should be included explicitly in future labor-workforce analyses and transportation modeling. The analyses in this report use the sample of workers who lived in Los Angeles County, California.