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Flat Unemployment Rate Masks the Race Gap
The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in March, but the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 percent, according to new figures released by the Labor Department Friday.
“We’re seeing a whole set of things happening in the recession that are making the inequity worse,” said Seth Wessler, a researcher at the Applied Research Center, a racial justice think tank in Oakland. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Justin Sullivan) On the whole, the economic news was mixed, but for African Americans, it
was particularly troubling. The unemployment rate for whites held
steady at 8.8 percent compared to February and went down for Asians from
8.4 percent to 7.5 percent. But it rose to 16.5 percent for blacks from
15.8 percent. Hispanics showed a slight increase as well from 12.4
percent to 12.6 percent.
"It's very disappointing," said Peter Edelman, a former Clinton administration official who directs the Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy at the Georgetown University.
While there have long been disparities in white and minority employment, Edelman said, the latest unemployment numbers from the Labor Department show that while "some white people got jobs, some black people and Latinos actually fell behind more."
"We're seeing a whole set of things happening in the recession that are making the inequity worse," said Seth Wessler, a researcher at the Applied Research Center, a racial justice think tank in Oakland.
Chief among those factors are the massive cuts meted out to public services on the state and local level, particularly to public transportation.
"If the bus line you depend on is cut, it's impossible to look for a job or even hold onto the one you have," Wessler said, "and we know that across the country - from New York to Los Angeles - bus service is being cut and fares are increasing."
"We know that people of color are much more likely to depend on public transportation," he added. "White people are not being impacted in quite the same way."
Edelman of Georgetown University believes the primary source of the job gap is the type of work that is emerging as the economy recovers: "mid-skilled" jobs in the health care and alternative energy sectors.
"There will be job growth. The question is who gets the job," Edelman said.
"The jobs that we project over the next decade that are reasonably well paying involve a degree of skills and a degree of preparation," he added, "and people of color have disparate educational attainment," and will be less able to land that work without an associates degree or certificate from a local community college.
President Obama recognizes this, Edelman said, and included a $10 billion investment in community colleges as part of his health care package, but the amount was slashed down to just $2 billion as part of the "reconciliation" process between the House and Senate versions of the bill.
Other efforts at major federal job training and employment programs have floundered in Congress because of Republican opposition, Edelman said, and Obama has not done enough to overcome it.
Minority communities will likely see an increase in the coming months as the Census Bureau hires 700,000 enumerators who help count the U.S. population, said Heidi Shierholtz, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
But those jobs will be gone by the fall and Shierholtz believes unemployment will be on the rise again in the fourth quarter of 2010. The latest unemployment figures from the Labor Department show that more than 400,000 Americans have been out of work for more than six months and have joined the ranks of the "long-term unemployed."
"I don't think we've turned the corner," she said, "and we will not turn the corner until early next year."
- Posted in
32 Comments so far
Show AllMy mom always told me that, "The people in charge, hire their own". As a black man, I've never been under any illusions about what I face here. I have always had to be twice as good to get the same as my white counterparts. Someone mentioned in the article on racism that it will not end as long as whites continue to receive benefits based on just being white. This is true. Sickeningly enough, as asking whites to do this would be tantamount to economic suicide, I do not expect racism to ever go away.
Racism is tied so closely to economics that racism will only go away to the extent that this economic system does. When everyone has enough to eat, real economic security, right employment, a safe and decent standard of living and a peaceful and vibrant environment, racism will disappear like the morning dew under a summer sun. Now what are the odds of this happening in this country?
Hey Black Anarch you might want to tell your bro Damien over on the racism item that African American anarchists are out there, he doesn't believe any exist.
Thanks!
Solidarity!
LOL oh please. How many? Like 5 black anarchists to every 1000 white ones? Sure, pretty equal, not really.
That early Russian revolution you champion was real real diverse too, lets see there were Slavic people, Slavic people and what's that oh yeah, more Slavic people.
The best part was the massacre of anarchists at Kornstadt, yep I sure do love those old school commies, they were the best:
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/bright/berkman/kronstadt/berkkron.html
Sigh!
Even better is refighting 90 year old battles with commies when everyone in the whole world other than those trembling in fear of the gulag moved on 89 years ago.
I don't know, brother. Maybe we only need five black anarchists to do what it takes a thousand white ones to do (just kidding). Pleasure to make your acquaintance.
:)
"Someone mentioned in the article on racism that it will not end as long as whites continue to receive benefits based on just being white."
What benefits? Who's doing me a favor because they love white people?
The people in my charge may more often than not be my color, but they 'aint my kind.
This article illustrates a problem with the Left. They only see a problem when there's a disproportionate figure. Therefore unemployment isn't a problem, but racism. They never look at class. I guess they figure that there should always be unemployment, but it's only a problem when blacks and hispanics are unemployed at a greater rate, when the goal should be universal employment at a decent wage!
Which brings me to another thing they miss. They assume when someone's employed, they're safe, and they aren't. They don't realize that there are many working poor in this country. Even people that make decent wages are having trouble staying above water. Not all employers have health benefits for their employees, and if they do, they are often substandard. The same holds true with sick time, vacation time.
There's this other notion that whites have something substantial to lose if equality is to be achieved, that their quality of life will dip, and that all is required is for whites to give up everything to minorities. That isn't true. All that does is feed into right-wing canards that minorities want to snatch things away from whites and that the tables, so to speak, will be turned on them.
Everyone has everything to gain from socialist reform, even the wealthy.
"Racism is tied so closely to economics that racism will only go away to the extent that this economic system does. When everyone has enough to eat, real economic security, right employment, a safe and decent standard of living and a peaceful and vibrant environment, racism will disappear like the morning dew under a summer sun. Now what are the odds of this happening in this country?"
It can happen. A majority wants the right kind of change in this country.
I did not ignore economic class as the predominant factor in racism. One could nearly correlate a person's race with what their economic class will be, in Amerika. I would go as far as to say that racism is overwhelmingly economic in outlook. The white ruling elites use middle-class and poor racists as a shield to prevent all of us from uniting as a economic class and taking their asses down a peg.
Want to talk about canards? Why, if whites aren't afraid of losing their quality of life, do you hardly see any whites discussing the simple and just idea of reparations to the descendents of Amerikan slaves? My ancestors (I know, I traced my genealogy) were owned as property. When they were given their freedom, after 100 years of toil, brutality and want, they weren't give anything else to build a life in this country with. Hell, even during the period of Amerikan indentured servitude, a master had to give their former servants the means to start a new life. This is only righteous and fair. However, as soon as any black person even breathes the hint of reparations, whites start chanting the litany: "Why should I pay? I never owned slaves. You've never been a slave." It's rather sickening and shows just how deeply racism and economics are tied.
In any case, we all know that racism became institutionalized as a part of the economic system in Amerika. So, until this economic system dies, racism won't. Simple as that. Black Anarch out.
I never said you ignored class Black Anarch, and I know from your posts that you are class conscious. It's just that race gets so much attention. We get "Black In America" on CNN and never "Poor Or Working Class In America." Race isn't the end-all be-all of the American social reality. Class arguably is. Racism, sexism, homophobia just compound classism for people.
Then again, any non-white born into affluence has better life chances than a white person born into poverty.
"The white ruling elites use middle-class and poor racists as a shield to prevent all of us from uniting as a economic class and taking their asses down a peg."
That I can agree with.
"Why, if whites aren't afraid of losing their quality of life, do you hardly see any whites discussing the simple and just idea of reparations to the descendents of Amerikan slaves? My ancestors (I know, I traced my genealogy) were owned as property."
The idea of reparations is something that has been pushed to the margins in our public discourse. Most people, black, white, red included, think it would involve handing checks over to people. That's not what most reparationists want. It's never been properly discussed in the mainstream media.
I support reparations also. I wouldn't if racism was no longer with us.
"This is only righteous and fair. However, as soon as any black person even breathes the hint of reparations, whites start chanting the litany: "Why should I pay? I never owned slaves. You've never been a slave." It's rather sickening and shows just how deeply racism and economics are tied."
Again it's not publicly addressed along with other ideas regarding socioeconomic justice.
Achieving equality doesn't have to penalize anyone but the elites. The key I think is proper taxation. It doesn't have to come out of white people's pockets. The Right fools people into thinking their taxes have to go up immensely for any increase in public services from universal single payer the New Green Deal. It doesn't have to.
Imagine a hefty Robin Hood Tax for about ten years, 10% for example. What we could do for people with that money, granted America's wars are ended, defense spending is cut down to a pittance, and we stop corporate welfare.
"So, until this economic system dies, racism won't."
Racism is a useful tool for the corporatists of all shades since it forces people to compete rather than cooperate with each other.
P.S. Domestic debt forgiveness, universal single payer health care/education, universal living wage employment, and a Green New Deal would be reparations for workers and poor imo.
Race-based reparations would not only cover slavery, but Jim Crow, redlining, urban renewal, racial exclusion from the original New Deal, the funneling of drugs into black communities, etc. They would also apply to Native Americans and Latinos. There would also be a reparations initiative for the 3rd World.
Okay, just who is supposed to pay these 'reparations' [imagine imposing a tax on only white and other races to do what you claim is 'righteous and fair'] and how much? Do blacks mixed with other races get a half or a third of the payout? How long would those benefits last? Better, I think, to create a society where everyone has a fair shake, black, white, Latino, Filipino, et al.
"Why should I pay? I never owned slaves. You've never been a slave." It's rather sickening and shows just how deeply racism and economics are tied.
Again, forget about the reparation payout and put your energy toward creating a more egalitarian society. That means you have to be able to put your humanity before your race. Ditto for the rest of us.
Presently, we live in an ugly, exploitative, self-indulgent world, and the collective is a reflection of the individual. It does us no good to try to clean up the pool when we piss in it every night while sleep walking.
And as Rocky points out the broader issue is classism, which means all in poverty are presently suffering. Percentage wise are more blacks suffering than whites? Yes. Will paying reparations to blacks solve the problem or stop racism? No.
Because the lame, disgusting, Democrat Party is going
to be playing the race card from now until election
time trying to keep the minority vote that they
don't deserve one bit. It is their only ticket to power.
So, they will be fanning the racist flame any time
they can. They will use their media to over play
the tea baggers and other fringe elements until election
time.
They have never addressed the inequality in the work force
when they have had a chance tooooo.
Nor have the Democrats addressed the unfair incarceration
rates of young black men when they have been able tooooo.
However, they always have been able to count on the
minority vote... This election is a little troublesome
for the Dems., they are naked, even to minorities,
they are so desperate for the minority vote, we will
see them fanning those racist flames for a while.!!!!
"What benefits? Who's doing me a favor because they love white people?"
Nonsense! Of course there's a benefit--have you seen the cost of housing in Alabammy?
I don't know about you, but I'm goin'!
Well here we go again. Nobody's getting good jobs, beacuse there are no good jobs. As I have written before I'm crippled with a major back issue. It takes me 4 / 5x longer to get a job, and then to keep it, don't get me started.
Yet I'm not throwing down any cards, or bringing up ADA which is supposed to level the playing field a bit. IT DOESN'T I've got a boss now that would like to see me gone gets nervious whenever I have to take a run to get a shot for pain or spend a few days with a walker just to drag myself into work.
But I can tell you Diversity is not the answer! We need to come together and work togther. Americias great strength was as a melting pot where peoples started out diverse but come togther to create a greater whole.
Everyones hurting, some more than others. You just have trying. If you quit they've already won!
"Well here we go again. Nobody's getting good jobs, beacuse there are no good jobs. As I have written before I'm crippled with a major back issue. It takes me 4 / 5x longer to get a job, and then to keep it, don't get me started."
Richard, you'll be in my thoughts. You're right, we are all hurting. EVERYONE needs jobs! I just get annoyed when people factor race into it as if unemployment is a natural part of society and that it should be proportionately the same for every group.
"But I can tell you Diversity is not the answer! We need to come together and work togther. Americias great strength was as a melting pot where peoples started out diverse but come togther to create a greater whole."
Well diversity is a reality and shouldn't be stifled. You're sort of contradicting yourself. The Melting Pot IS diversity, and people can still be who they are and come together despite their cultural, ethnic, sexual differences.
Those differences can be wonderful too. They make life more interesting.
I was happy to see Tavis Smiley do the
Beyond Viet Nam special on PBS. I hope
all the black leaders and pundits that
endorsed Obama start taking him to task,
as a matter, I wish all the editors and pundits
that endorsed this corpocrat would do the same.
Anyone who examined OH?bama's record could
have determined that he was a corporate shill.
Smiley, West, Dyson, Jackson etal, gave Obama
a blanket endorsement knowing everything that
I knew about Obama.
I do not blame all those that voted Obama, most
didn't have the time to examine his background as
I did and Obama has a very keen way of making someone
believe black is white and white is black, hell
at times he still almost fools me.
I think the enemy elites are in fact aware of and doing something about racism. They are working very hard at eliminating the "middle class" and have successfully initiated the decline of a "white" majority so that there will inevitably no longer be "white" people to serve as a buffer between them and the "slave" class that they are also working very, very hard at (re)creating.
The theft of all wealth will provide their new insulation from the teeming masses. The weaponry being developed and tested out on the poor of the world today will become the agent of enforcement.
Divide and Conquer will be really ratcheting up in the near term and the "white" people will become the scapegoats to bear the rage of the masses. Only after that will the elites reveal who or what they really are; and they are not human in the sense that you and I are.
I pray that God end the world before they accomplish it, and it seems that may come to pass as well. They are turning this planet into the physical definition of HELL, anyway.
Interesting point of view and I somewhat agree minus the implied David Ickian metaphysics, The important point for *all* us IMO is that the suits in the suites who represent transnational capital are the enemies of *everyone* black or white gay or straight they crush under their boot heel.
Well.... I confess to having to look up "the implied David Ickian metaphysics..." and would have to say that no, I am not implying that. Rather the simple distinction that they care not in the slightest way what becomes of the classes, races, peoples who they consider "beneath" them. They consider our existence as only to serve them and their interests. They consider us to be expendable at their whim. I have no doubt that there will be legions of "white" people shocked out of their minds when the realization comes that they have been used in this way and will be discarded like last weeks garbage when that proverbial "New World Order" is initiated.
And that just ain't humane, human, or whatever term one might want to use. I hope that all people come together and turn the table, but the seduction of being the "favored ones" is so ingrained. And it isn't just "white" people. ALL people who acquire substantial monetary wealth act and think the same.
I thought you meant literally not human like Icke's insane outerspace liazrd people rantings, my bad. :)
I agree 100% with what you say here. Good post, sorry for the confusion. Hopefully looking up David Icke was good for a laugh? :)
hehe Yes- it was, and thanks!
Why are you fighting with me, but when some guy says it, it's okay?
Are you on drugs?
chessgames56-Reparations would be paid for by the gov't, not white people. The money would go to communities not individuals.
To me it's a moral gesture more than anything, a restitution if you will. I think it would end a lot of resentment.
And besides, socialist reform, at least imo, would be reparations for all workers and poor.
Why did we come to the rescue of the banks with a big bailout but are reluctant to do a BIG jobs bill to bailout ordinary citizens?
Because the government is captive to corporate and financier class interests. Are there any other easy questions I can answer for you? :)
" have no doubt that there will be legions of "white" people shocked out of their minds when the realization comes that they have been used in this way and will be discarded like last weeks garbage when that proverbial "New World Order" is initiated."
Yeah, and most of them are "liberals." Conservatives are those middle class whites who noticed the oligarchy was turning them into convenient scapegoats 40 years ago. This is one meaning of "liberal elite."
How about we stop scapegoating with terms like "liberal elite" and "middle class whites" and unite against the oligarchy screwing us? I've actually been arguing here rather tirelessly that we on the left need to get over ourselves and do outreach to conservatives like yourself but I must say you aren't helping when you use tired old canards like "liberal elite" and this poor lil ole me white guy business. :( Care to start again more productively? I am listening...
No, because today the screwing is truly going down in the culturally liberal but corporatist camp of hypocrites, and telling the truth about it is exactly what needs to happen before any positive hopey changey things will occur for any one.
I'm sorry "liberal elite" is a term that bothers you, but it seems a pretty logical descriptor to me for a group of hyocrites who scapegoat their inferiors as a distraction from their own hegemony, cackling all the way to their brokers.
As a descriptor, I'm pretty sure it can't be improved on. You know, sometimes conservatives get things exactly right. I'm not going to deny them their points when they're correct.
Dude I am working class landscaper and stereo fix it guy, and despise Obummer because he has replicated all the worst polices of Bush. *Both* parties are tools of the corporate oligarchy what you most likely call the New World Order. Rather than American citizens pointing fingers at each other as when you ding "liberal elites" which is just some poor clueless bastard with an underwater mortgage who shops at Whole Foods we ought to *unite* against the banksters, people negotiating global trade agreements, corporations, and endless wars that are draining blood and treasure for no good end for *American* citizens. The suits in the suites not the "liberal elites" are our real problem. Turn off Rush and put way the McCain bumper stickers and talk to us leftists as human beings not as cardboard stereotypes some hate radio jockey told you we are. Again I have been telling people here we need to do do outreach and talk to people just like you as human beings and have gotten much flak for suggesting that, you aren't helping by giving me flack in return instead of listening to what I am saying.
And to forestall pointless MSM generated baby talk Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow are not one damn bit better than Rush, it's just the same corporate agenda presented in a more lisping articulate friendly to liberal arts educated people way.
Hint, although I am on the hard left I think Ron Paul as someone against interventionism and against corrosion of our Constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties is a better friend than the Democrats, turn off the tee vee that is causing you to hate the wrong people and listen, please?
Dialog is desperately needed as America heads for the crapper, the elite of concentrated wealth and power wants to keep us divided. Lets not play their suckers game, OK?
You're actually wrong, in the sense that most "liberals," who are not elites, nevertheless constantly scapegoat the white working class as morally deficient, which enables the bipartisan--but including the "liberal elite"--oligarchy to turn around and promote policies that deliberately damage them and their interests because they *ought* to be punished. In the process, everyone across all demographics, gets punished along with them.
This has been true in all kinds of labor issues, for 40 years, and it was recently very pronounced in the health insurance scam, where "liberals" (notably, Paul Krugman) were the ones who went around accusing those who didn't have insurance--because they couldn't afford it--of being "free riders" who needed the government to come in and *force* them to *be responsible* by making them buy ...that which they couldn't afford in the first place. Then, when they go into debt and default, the conservatives will pick up where the "big government" liberal elite left off.
The truth is that "liberals" over the past 40 years have centered the entirety of their ideology on kicking the figure of the lower strata white male. This has a lot of emotional resonance with people-- some of whom are serious "trogolodytes" to use a nice "liberal" term-- but it is brain addled and feeds the right, as one might expect it would. Repugs were smart enough not to play that particular card, and it paid off in spades, moving the whole country to the right on a wave of lower strata resentiment.
I am not a lower strata white male (nor am I a conservative), but some things are too pronounced, too one-dinmensional and repetitive, not to notice. And, as I don't think this garbage has done me (or the country) any good, I have no interest in seeing it continued.
In my opinion, after 40 years of this one note orchestra, which suffused the ridiculous 2008 D-Party primary from stem to stern, the results are in. "Liberals" need to take a good whiff and realize that not only have they been played, but they're only just now--very belatedly-- getting situated in a new national reality.
"*Both* parties are tools of the corporate oligarchy what you most likely call the New World Order."
I did not use that term. That was a quote. But, actually, there is a new world order and it needs a new response. The old one is played out. I've also never listened to Rush Limbaugh in my life, nor am I tempted.
It clear to me, however, that YOU only see people through a left/ right lens despite your insistence that "the enemy" is the "banksters," but NOT their hypocritical liberal elite punditocracy (or brain dead liberal academia, either, I suppose).
No, never. Never them. No question about it. If you look to "liberals" they will f*ck YOUR kind raw, every time. You just watch what heppens in the 2012 election.
I'm sorry if that means you need a new source of hope. Me, I can probably "pass," LOL. And, maybe sometimes I do.
;)~~~
Amazingly you managed to not listen to a single thing I said and instead just parroted back some talking points. Since you missed it the first time I'll type it on all caps so you can't avoid it on this read
I DON'T LIKE OBAMA "HOPE" IN THE SYSTEM IS DEAD!!!
I am not a "liberal" either but rather a hard leftist the only reason I brought up the "liberal elite," quote is because to me it's tell tale rhetoric of someone listening to too much John McCain, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin who just like Obama are *also* wrong.
Here, let's try this instead, what do you think of Ron Paul?
Although you don't seem to be getting it I'm actually reaching a hand out towards and trying to get you to see people like me aren't your enemy, that it's the unaccountable elite that negotiates trades agreements, *lies* and tells us creating a captive market for insurance companies is health care reform, bails out big rich banks with your tax payer money, and runs corporations that offshore American jobs that is your enemy.
So you can take the extended hand I offer or not, no skin off my back if you don't.
I will continue to speak with all sorts of people but not all of you will be keepers. I strongly suspect you aren't a keeper but who knows maybe you'll prove me wrong? :)
You are wasting your time stereo. Most hard-core 'believers' whether on the left or right must experience severe disillusionment before they change their world view--and many will not change it even then. Unfortunately, none will be able to escape from the consequences of whatever seeds they've knowingly or unknowingly sown. Ignorance is neither bliss, nor a shield against reality.
I'll keep fishing though, slow and steady if I talk to a 100 people and 10 actually learn something and want to help us oppose the suits in the suites and we all did that we would grow by 10 times. I'll learn something sometimes too, though not in this case obviously. :)