> Still, an increase of something on the
>order of 3/4 million in the last decade should leave some fairly
>significant statistical trace, both on employment rates, as Yoshie says,
>and income, as I argued before.
No doubt imprisonment has taken a lot of low-income black men off the labor market (something like 8% of black men between the age of 20 and 40 are serving prison terms, which is just a horrifying number). But black income gains have occurred in every quintile - and young, unjailed black men have seen pretty strong employment and earnings gains (see abstract below). Also, lots of black women have been thrown onto the labor market because of welfare reform - something that could serve to pull down the averages.
Doug
<http://papers.nber.org/papers/W7073> Area Economic Conditions and the Labor Market Outcomes of Young Men in the 1990s Expansion Richard B. Freeman, William M. Rodgers III
NBER Working Paper No. W7073 Issued in April 1999
The current expansion has shattered the length of the previous longest peace-time boom and brought unemployment rates below four percent in 44 percent of metropolitan areas. We estimate the expansion's impact on the labor market outcomes of less-educated men. We find that young men, especially young African American men in tight labor markets experienced a boost in employment and earnings. Adult men had no gains, and their earnings barely changed even in areas with unemployment rates below 4 percent. Youths have higher earnings and employment in low crime states and poorer labor market outcomes in states where incarcerations are high.