To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to alleviate poverty by encouraging the employment of residents by empowerment zone businesses through the employment of residents in designated areas of pervasive poverty, unemployment, and general distress.

Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow enterprise zone businesses operating in empowerment zones (economically depressed areas) who file necessary information with the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development documenting reasonable efforts to meet the residency requirement applicable to zone employees to receive an exemption from such requirement if at least 35% of their employees during the final three months of a taxable year are residents of the empowerment zone or any area within a 15-mile radius of the qualified business which has been designated by any governmental unit as an area of pervasive poverty, unemployment, and general distress.