"Is the United States justified in seeing itself as a meritocracy, where stark inequalities in pay and employment reflect differences in skills, education, and effort? Or does racial discrimination still permeate the labor market, resulting in the systematic underhiring and underpaying of racial minorities, regardless of merit? Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s African Americans have lost ground to whites in the labor market, but this widening racial inequality is most often attributed to economic restructuring, not the racial attitudes of employers.

It is argued that the educational gap between blacks and whites, through narrowing, carries greater penalties now that we are living in an era of global trade and technological change that favors highly educated workers and displaces the low-skilled."

"Stories Employers Tell demonstrates that this conventional wisdom is incomplete. Racial discrimination is still a fundamental part of the explanation of labor market disadvantage. Drawing upon a wide-ranging survey of empolyers in Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles, Philip Moss and Chris Tilly investigate the types of jobs employers offer, the skills required, and the recruitment, screening, and hiring procedures used to fill them. The authors then follow up in greater depth on selected employers to explore the attitudes, motivations, and rationale underlying their hiring decisions, as well as decisions about where to locate a business."--Jacket.