Great Depression II for Young Black Men

For those who pay attention to racial, economic or labor market inequality, the news that one in three young black men is jobless is no surprise. That this equals Great Depression levels may be startling, for those of us not steeped in the details of our unequal history.

It's not much better for young black women; 1 in 4 are out of work. Taken together, the jobless rate among these young men are women is 30.5%. This disproportional joblessness stems from a variety of intersecting factors:

• High unemployment in sectors in which these young adults are traditionally employed, including construction, manufacturing and retail;
• Elimination of training and apprenticeship programs that provide an entry into the workforce for many;
• Replacement of young workers with older workers who were let go from other jobs;
• A less competitive employment position for many of these young people, who are more likely to come from lower-income backgrounds that provide worse schooling and work experience opportunities; and
• Discrimination. From the above link: "Black men with a clean record fare no better than white men just released from prison."

For these young black women and men:

race statistically appears to be a bigger factor in their unemployment than age, income or even education. Lower-income white teens were more likely to find work than upper-income black teens, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, and even blacks who graduate from college suffer from joblessness at twice the rate of their white peers.

I've spent the semester as a Teaching Assistant for a class on crime, justice and the American legal system. It's taught by a scholar who specializes in urban gun and gang violence, particularly in Boston, so the class occasionally focuses specifically on the very small subset (less than 5%) of predominately African-American teen boys and young men in high-poverty, high-crime neighborhoods who have a history of gang membership. We recently heard from a street worker from the Boston Ministerial Alliance, who counsels boys looking to change course in their lives, and who trains them and employs them in community organizing. When asked by the students what she would spend money on in an ideal world for these kids, she stressed, JOBS JOBS JOBS.

This should be our investment priority to reach these young men and the black youth and/or low-income youth with high school degrees and college degrees and no criminal records who face consistently blocked jobs options. Unless we can find the political will for substantial public jobs programs, to highlight and halt job discrimination, and to allow people with criminal records the chance to rebuild their lives, the consequences of such high rates of joblessness among young people will be long-lasting and severe:

This might be the first generation that does not keep up with its parents' standard of living. Jobless teens are more likely to be jobless twenty-somethings. Once forced onto the sidelines, they likely will not catch up financially for many years. That is the case even for young people of all ethnic groups who graduate from college.

It's chilling, the world we've created for this and future generations.

(Photo by hyperscholar)