Missing Black Men? The Impact of Non-Reporting on Estimates of Labor Market Outcomes for Black Men

Adult Black men persistently do not report to household-based surveys, with demographers estimating non-reporting rates of 7-14% from 1970-2020. We derive a method to account for incomplete data and show that non-reporting rates are up to 5.5 percentage points (pp) larger than prior estimates, with significant heterogeneity by year. We then show that Black men at risk of incarceration drive non-reporting. We use state-year variation in incarceration rates to estimate that 35-83% of the incarcerated population would have been non-reporting if not incarcerated. Adjusting for previously uncorrected non-reporting shows that the Black-white gap in high-school completion is 20-39% (3.0-5.9 pp) larger, college attendance is 8-18% (3.1-6.1 pp) larger, and earnings is 10-20% (2.8-5.7 pp) larger. In contrast, the gap in employment is 4-8% (0.6-1.6 pp) smaller than previously thought.