Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal

We study race in the labor market by sending fictitious resumes to help-wanted ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers. To manipulate perceived race, resumes are randomly assigned African-American- or White-sounding names. White names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. Callbacks are also more respon-sive to resume quality for White names than for African-American ones. The racial gap is uniform across occupation, industry, and employer size. We also find little evidence that employers are inferring social class from the names. Differential treatment by race still appears to still be prominent in the U.S. labor market. (JEL J71, J64). Every measure of economic success reveals significant racial inequality in the U.S. labor market. Compared to Whites, African-Ameri-cans are twice as likely to be unemployed and earn nearly 25 percent less when they are em-ployed (Council of Economic Advisers, 1998)