By Norm Bond, www.BlackEconomicDevelopment.com
That’s the conclusion of a recent study by Dr. Marc Levine at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He looked at “employment rates” in forty of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas based on every Census taken from 1970 to 2010.
The results are shared in “Race and Male Employment in Wake of the Great Recession: Black Male Employment Rates in Milwaukee and the Nation’s Largest Metro Areas 2010“. The findings are stunning and should be a wake-up call to the entire nation, particularly community activists, policymakers, media and the Black community.
Black male employment is a crisis with no solutions on the table and faint discussion of the problem. Levine finds that in five of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, fewer than half of the working-age Black males held jobs. The US Census defines “working age” as 16-64, and “prime working years” as 25-54. In Milwaukee, the Black male employment rate in 2010 (latest year available) was over 20 points lower than the Hispanic male rate and 32.7 percentage points lower than that of white males.
Why does Levine, look at employment rates, instead of the more commonly reported unemployment rates? Today many economic experts agree that the “unemployment rate statistic” is “seriously flawed and often misleading” in gauging labor market performance.
The official unemployment rate only includes those who “do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior four weeks, and are currently available for work“. This narrow definition ignores discouraged workers and those “marginally attached” to the labor market.
It also removes the tens of thousands of Black men sitting in U.S. jails — since they are “not available”. Adds David Leonhardt of The New York Times, “It’s simply no longer the best barometer of the country’s economic health.”
Instead, the “employment-population” ratio, better known as the “employment rate” provides a truer picture. It really provides a better indicator of the extent to which the working age population in a community is actually working.
Here are some insights from the report:
The study points to some policies that should be considered to counter the findings including:
So while the nation moves into a debate around which party is going to do the best for “all of America” — where is the conversation regarding the disappearance of work for Black men?
Please leave your comments below.
Is “the government” some alien entity that does not belong to the people? If the people don’t reclaim the government, then the business boys on Wall Street will gladly take it. Heck, they’ll even give themselves a form of social assistance – trillions of dollars worth.
@artforjustice: Your statements also ring true, for if this is actually a global economy as often cited, then Black businesses and entrepreneurs should waste no time in seeking alternative and more practical means of business financing. Although racism is a global reality, I doubt that it would be as bad abroad as here in the United States. The debilitating effects of the current recession is a reality shared across the globe. Building solid business relationships are all about moving forward, and not in the current fashion as exemplified by regressive American business leaders. Lastly, Black businesses and entrepreneurs should never underestimate, undervalue or marginalize their potential for successful ventures. If there are no opportunities here in the U.S., then we should be realistic by seeking and developing them abroad.
Having 3+ children with different men makes problem much worse.
Proper education and husband-wife shared family finance alone can heal the problem.
Unless above this happen, no government help makes sense.
If you look at child poverty in Milwauke metro, Whites got just 4% because they have children only if child’s quality of life is guaranteed.
In other hand, Black chidren poverty rate is 35%. The reason is many black women tend to have as many children as possible so that they can earn more money through welfare.
Blacks are in trouble because of their own actions!
Notice that many companies hire illegal workers insttead of black workers that do the job the way it is supposed to be done.
They literally try to run out black workers, and the ones they hire they are harassed, underpaid, overworked, regulated to lesser paying jobs and lower pay.
And many times the illegal workers do everything but work, and are defended by the employers!
Time to take care of our own.
African Americans have given up on reading, and African American politicians dare to support a sitting black U.S. president out of fear of being called a ni@#er lover by white politicians.
The New York Times refers to Barack Obama as the last black politician. White journalist asks each other out loud, “What’s going with progression, evolution and rehabilitation in the black community”?
The reply is nothing happening in the black community. There is no movement of progression, evolution and rehabilitation in the black community.
Unless a African American is speaking out loud complaining about the first black president then it is like Christmas Eve in the black community whereas….
“all throughout the house, no creatures were stirring, not even a mouse. The black folks cowered on the plantation with despair hoping soon that the white people will be there.”
By and by someone told the African Americans that reading books is the way to freedom, prosperity, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness but the African Americans replied from their actions that…
”If waiting for the white people to come is wrong then I don’t want to be right because ain’t no book gonna save me!”
…And so the white people came
White people came and joined the African Americans in their civil rights struggle. White people did not have to support the African American struggle but they had respect for blacks that had the courage to stand up for the ideals, symbolism and dignity of the Red, Green and Black flag.
White people came to Africa to help with the black struggle. White people came into the inner city neighborhoods and schools to help teach African American children.
The white people came and built housing to keep African Americans in their communities. The white people came and built banks so that African Americans can save money ………but the African Americans will have none of it.
Instead of civil rights, schools, Affordable housing, bank loans and libraries African Americans want President Obama to find or create for them a job or opportunity. African Americans want unlimited unemployment extensions and affordable housing only in white areas.
African Americans want banks to make it easy and affordable through no interest charity loans to be able to shop in the white areas and eat in white restaurants.
African Americas protest and keep their children out of African American schools because they want to raise and educate their children alongside white people’s children.
It is not enough that the white people came into the African American inner city neighborhoods and areas bringing with them the avenues of opportunity for African Americans to do for self.
Doing for self means supporting their own black businesses and reading how to books. African Americans treat reading books like weapons of mass destruction and supporting black business is a waste of time because African Americans don’t read enough to know the infinite benefits of supporting their own enterprises.
….so the African Americans wait for the white people to come again.
The white people came again but this time they showed up with high powered rifles to shoot and kill any black person trying to escape uptown during the Katrina hurricane.
The white people came on cruise ships to Haiti during the earthquake to swim, have sex, sip wine, eat caviar and drink champagne from their lavish cruise ships as they watched, pointed and rejoiced at the black dead bodies laying crushed, decapitated, mangled and twisted in the streets of Haiti.
The white people came back into the inner city neighborhoods and areas to shut down your schools, cut off your welfare and suspend private funding
The white people came and left taking with them their magnanimous gestures of African American opportunities and on the way out they let the Spanish players in.
… and the Spanish players don’t take prisoners.
The Spanish players as of this writing have the African Americans surrounded and engulfed as they cut off and deplete the African Americans residual resources of land, food and water.
The African Americans sit idly by on the 21st century plantation watching their own destruction, demise, elimination, defeat and extinction hoping in their hearts that it will only happen to the other African American family and not them.
When African Americans are asked about their condition and as long as African Americans refuse to open up and read a book then..….
….It is all Barack Obama’s fault.
DEAR AFRICAN AMERICANS
Reading is your only way to freedom and Undercover Smart is the book YOU MUST read.
Read Undercover Smart and the life you save will be your own.
http://store.mubarakinter-prizes.com/undercs.html
Sincerely, Enoch Mubarak
President/CEO Mubarak Inter-prizes
http://www.mubarakinter-prizes.com