As manufacturing jobs disappear, houses get foreclosed and union jobs go bye-bye, so goes the black middle class. Black union membership went from 31.7 percent in 1983 to 16 percent in 2006. (Blacks in unions make about $2 more than their non-unionized counterparts.)
The Buffalo News:
"The Buffalo metro area topped the list among 35 large American cities with a staggering
black male jobless rate of 51.4 percent, according to figures cited by Professor Marc V. Levine of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Milwaukee finished a close second, at 51.1 percent, with
Detroit third, St. Louis fourth and Chicago fifth . . .
Denver had the lowest black male jobless rate, 28.7 percent, followed by Washington with 29.5 percent and San Diego with 31.1.
In his study, Levine also compared the black and white jobless rates for each of the 35 metro areas. Milwaukee had a relatively low white jobless rate of 18.6 percent, meaning that
the gap between its black and white jobless rates was 32.5 percentage points. (Yikes!)
Buffalo finished second in that category with a racial gap of 26.1 percentage points — the difference between its black jobless rate of 51.4 percent and its white jobless figure of 25.3."
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/463808.html(Gosh, DC only had an unemployment rate of 29.5 %, that's almost like full employment!)
The overall unemployment rate for blacks is 11.2.
These numbers are just staggering. Added to the loss of manufacturing jobs, which has been going on for a while now, the mortgage crisis really did a whammy on blacks, too.
The Bay State Banner:
"'This represents the greatest loss of wealth for people of color in modern U.S. history,' declared United for a Fair Economy, the Boston-based nonprofit organization that authored the report, 'Foreclosed: State of the Dream 2008.' As a result of defaults on subprime loans, black borrowers will lose between $71 billion and $92 billion, the report concluded, not including a ripple effect of consequences expected to exact an even higher toll.
(The Black depression of today may well foreshadow the depth and length of the recession the whole country entered in December 2007. A deep recession would see median family income decline by 4%. Thirty-three per cent of Blacks and 41% of Latinos would drop out of the middle class. The overall national rate would be 25%.
http://www.faireconomy.org/files/pdf/state_of_dream_2009.pdf)
'The spillover effect of the subprime crisis affects whole communities negatively, in terms of abandoned houses, increased crime, devaluation of neighboring houses and erosion of the tax base, causing revenue shortfalls that mandate service cuts,' according to the report . . .
(Jon Schmitt, senior economist at the Center for Economic Policy Research says) 'Next year, I don’t think there’s a single analyst who does not think we’ll go (to) 8 (percent) or 9 percent unemployment, and the pessimists even predict 10 percent,' he said. 'So given the fact that African American unemployment is usually twice that of whites,
it could easily go to 16 percent or even up to 20 percent.'"
http://www.baystatebanner.com/natl16-2009-01-08 Just like in the Great Depression of the 1930's blacks suffer the brunt of the economic crisis. I don't see how we sustain any kind of livable society when 24% of Blacks and 21% of Latinos are living in poverty, versus 8% of whites. Talk about economic Apartheid!
And even if we get out of this recession, or depression, whatever it is, in a short time, the damage to the worst off will not be easily rectified. This is a long term problem that might be mitigated by the same sort massive bailouts the banks are getting right now, I'm thinking. Like
that's going to happen, right?
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