Black unemployment: Highest in 27 years

[Gunner]

Black unemployment: Highest in 27 years

By Annalyn Censky @CNNMoney September 2, 2011: 3:13 PM ET

The unemployment rate for blacks surged to 16.7% in August, its highest rate since 1984, the Labor Department reported Friday.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The August jobs report was dismal for plenty of reasons, but perhaps most striking was the picture it painted of racial inequality in the job market.
Black unemployment surged to 16.7% in August, its highest level since 1984, while the unemployment rate for whites fell slightly to 8%, the Labor Department reported.

"This month's numbers continue to bear out that longstanding pattern that minorities have a much more challenging time getting jobs," said Bill Rodgers, chief economist with the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.
Black unemployment has been roughly double that of whites since the government started tracking the figures in 1972.
Economists blame a variety of factors. The black workforce is younger than the white workforce, lower numbers of blacks get a college degree and many live in areas of the country that were harder hit by the recession -- all things that could lead to a higher unemployment rate.
But even excluding those factors, blacks still are hit with higher joblessness.
Unemployment rate, state by state
"Even when you compare black and white workers, same age range, same education, you still see pretty significant gaps in unemployment rates," said Algernon Austin, director of the Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy program at the Economic Policy Institute. "So I do think the fact of racial discrimination in the labor market continues to play a role."
About 155,000 blacks got jobs in August, but the group's unemployment rate still went up because those jobs weren't enough to make up for all the people who started looking for work during the month.
However, the gain for whites of 211,000 jobs was enough to bring their unemployment rate down.

Overall, black men have it the worst, with joblessness at a staggeringly high 19.1%, compared to 14.5% for black women.
Black unemployment has now remained above 10% for four straight years, and the given current economic sluggishness, some experts say it's safe to predict the rate will remain above 10% for four more years.
"Our job creation is just not happening -- certainly not at the rate necessarily to bring rapid reductions to the unemployment rate," Austin said.
Latinos saw their unemployment rate remain unchanged at 11.3% in August. Unemployment remains at 9.1% for the country as a whole.

 

[nittie]

There is a segment of the Black community that believes in 'tha streets', 'tha life', 'tha game' and they probably account for more than half of the unemployed. It's hard to catagorize them as poor because the underground economy is almost as big as the legit economy. Some of these people are very wealthy.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

Which of the Republican candidates has addressed Black unemployment?

It should be understood that Black people have taken the hardest hits from the Recession because we generally hold the government jobs that have been and are being cut. That could have been ameliorated somewhat had the Republicans supported more aid for the states.
But that's okay, let's just let the states sink and blame it on Obama.

 

[nittie]

There is a segment of the Black community that believes in 'tha streets', 'tha life', 'tha game' and they probably account for more than half of the unemployed. It's hard to catagorize them as poor because the underground economy is almost as big as the legit economy. Some of these people are very wealthy.

TAMPA, Florida -- On Friday, Tampa police announced the arrest of 49 people as part of what they're calling "Operation Rainmaker."

Detectives call it an ID theft scam that is costing Tampa taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Police say it started with thieves stealing the social security numbers of dead and living people.

Logan Pennypacker is one of those people. He's a disabled 27-year-old whose parents say they couldn't have worked enough last year to earn a $2,300 tax refund.

But yet, police say Reginald Jennings put that amount in his pocket by stealing Pennypacker's identity.

"You feel violated as a taxpayer," said Pennypacker's father, Keith.

Once they had an identity, police say the thieves would file taxes online. Then they'd get a check or fully stocked ATM card in the mail, or in some cases the money would be directly deposited into their accounts.

These stats don't apply to Black people anymore. We don't listen to the govt, we don't jump when they say jump. There is a new status quo emerging.

 

[SPECTRE1]

A lot of companies are getting rid of black employees that don't 'fit in'. Some of these companies didn't want to take the chance by making up fiction and saying you didn't perform. A layoff during an economic downturn is less obvious and a perfect opportunity.

A layoff is less risky than making up a reason and firing you for poor performance that could be challenged in court.

 

[SPECTRE1]

I had a couple of employers tell me they were looking for 'fit', or accidentally slip up and sent an email saying I didn't fit in based on their brief interaction...These glorified employees turning their jobs into their personal social or friends club instead of hiring people that will provide the best value for shareholders. Hiring people to make them feel comfortable at work...They should be fired...



It looks like ethnic cleansing, high unemployment, prisons, poor-underfunded schools...

 

[thoughtone]

Re: The Official Rand Paul Thread

source: Fact Check.org


Rand Paul, Obama & Black Unemployment


Sen. Rand Paul says “black unemployment in America is double white unemployment” and “hasn’t budged” under President Obama. Actually, the black unemployment rate is lower now than when Obama took office, and the gap between the races is below the historical average. The black unemployment rate has averaged more than double the white rate for several decades.

Paul discussed black unemployment on “Fox News Sunday” when asked if he supports Obama’s call to extend additional unemployment benefits. The Kentucky senator told host Chris Wallace that he opposes the extension, adding that Obama’s policies have not worked for African-Americans.

Paul, Dec. 8: When you allow people to be on unemployment insurance for 99 weeks, you’re causing them to become part of this perpetual unemployed group in our economy. And it really — while it seems good, it actually does a disservice to the people you’re trying to help.

You know, I don’t doubt the president’s motives. But black unemployment in America is double white unemployment. And it hasn’t budged under this president.

Wallace: But, senator –

Paul: I think a lot of African-Americans voted for him, but I don’t think it’s worked. I don’t think his policies have worked.
​

It is true that the black unemployment rate for November was double the white unemployment rate. The rate in November was 12.5 percent for blacks and 6.2 percent for whites, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unfortunately, this is not new. In a February 2010 article in the Population Association of America journal Demography, authors Kenneth Couch and Robert Fairlie wrote that “[t]he unemployment rate among blacks in the United States has been roughly double that of whites for several decades.”

Couch and Fairlie, February 2010: In the period from 1972 to 2004, the average rate of unemployment was 12.4 percent for black males versus 5.4 percent for whites. The ratio of these two rates, 2.3, is consistent with the observation that unemployment among blacks typically doubles that of whites.
​

Not much has changed since then. In an Aug. 31 blog post, the nonpartisan Pew Research Center wrote that “the unemployment rate for blacks has averaged about 2.2 times that for whites” since 1954 — which is the earliest that BLS has reliable unemployment data by race.

The current 12.5 percent unemployment rate for blacks is unquestionably high. But by historical standards the current black unemployment rate is consistent with the average from 1972 to 2004, and the ratio of black-to-white unemployment rates is actually below the historical average.

We looked at the average rate of unemployment for blacks and whites in the first 58 months of the last four presidents who were reelected to a second term: Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. (We averaged the monthly unemployment rates from the first February in office to the first November in their second term.)

Obama had the lowest average ratio (1.9), followed by Bush (2.1), Clinton (2.2), and Reagan (2.3).

Paul was talking about the November unemployment rates and ratio — not the 58-month average unemployment rate and ratio — but even by that measure the black-to-white unemployment ratio is lower under Obama (2) than it was under Reagan (2.6), Clinton (2.4) and Bush (2.5) at this point in their second terms.

​

Paul also said that the black unemployment rate “hasn’t budged” under Obama, but it has. It reached a high of 16.8 percent in March 2010 and dropped to a low of 12.5 percent in November — lower than the 12.7 percent rate when Obama took office. That wasn’t the case for two of his recent predecessors, Reagan and Bush.

Under Reagan, the black unemployment rate went up a full percentage point from 14.6 percent in January 1981 to 15.6 percent in November 1985 — even as the white unemployment rate fell from 6.7 percent to 5.9 percent.

Under Bush, the rates went up for both blacks and whites. But it went up faster for blacks, from 8.2 percent in January 2001 to 10.6 percent in November 2005 — the biggest increase in the black unemployment rate of any of the four presidents at that point in their second terms. The white unemployment rate went up more than a half percentage point, from 3.6 percent to 4.3 percent.

(We did not compare Obama to George H.W. Bush, since he did not serve two terms. But, for the record, the average black unemployment rate was 12.4 during the elder Bush’s four years in office, while the white rate was 5.5 percent. That’s an average black-to-white ratio of 2.3 to 1 — identical to the historical average from 1972 to 2004.)

Few would disagree with Paul that the black unemployment rate is unacceptably high and he is entitled to his opinion about the president’s policies. But to blame Obama for the black unemployment rate being double the white rate ignores decades of data and fails to put this president in historical context.