As part of the Roosevelt Institute's 10-part series on the Jobs Crisis, running on the New Deal 2.0 blog from Nov. 12-25, I was asked to reflect on what can be done to get Americans working again. Here's my take.
As the economy continues its long road to recovery, we must be wary of the policies implemented along the trek. Race looms at the fork in the road and we must determine which way to turn to most effectively address these issues in a manner to protect people of all colors.
That said, the significant impact on the African-American and Latino communities must not be ignored. Among blacks, the jobless rate stands at 15 percent, while unemployment among Hispanics exceeds 12 percent. Comparatively, joblessness among white workers is below 9 percent. The gap between black and white unemployment rates "is an index of discrimination in our society" says William A Darity, professor of African and African-American Studies and Economics at Duke University, as reported in Congressional Quarterly. To focus attention on those communities hardest hit doesn't divert attention from the omnipresent problem, but reminds us that we must be strategic in our thinking to avoid the flagrant mistakes of the past.
As Congressional Quarterly reminds us, it is a fact that the jobless rate for black Americans has remained much higher than that of whites through good times and bad since at least the 1960s. As I stated in that article, we need specific programs directed toward communities of color and unfortunately we're not seeing that. President Obama is right to note that he must "get the economy as a whole moving to be able to help anybody," but that effort should not be mutually exclusive from assisting those communities disproportionately impacted.
Minorities make up a larger portion of the low-wage work force and tend to have less seniority than white workers, so they are often more likely to lose their jobs when the economy sours (Congressional Quarterly). Even college-educated African-Americans are consistently more likely to be unemployed than whites who have only a high school diploma. At the very least the federal government needs to track how communities of color are being impacted and identify ways to implement intervention policies differently. Otherwise, when the economy recovers, African-Americans and Latinos will still find themselves at the same unequal playing field from where they started, or worse, permanently displaced in our economy.
The typical black family owns 10 cents to the white family's dollar, and the typical Latino family owns 12 cents, according to a 2007 survey in Insight Center for Economic Development's report. Fixing the economy doesn't substantively address this issue. The pre-recession era was one still marked by an unequal playing field and to return to that status does us a disservice.
We also must reinvest in African-American and Latino communities in a way that helps them sustain their wealth in the future. As noted by InsightCCED.org, 42 percent of whites own an IRA or Keogh compared to only 7 percent of African-Americans and 8 percent of Latinos. African-Americans are 23.3 and Hispanics 28.3 percentage points less likely than all families to have direct or indirect holdings of publicly traded stock. It is essential that these communities not only have the power to spend and earn an equal income for equal work, but be able to sustain wealth and build assets. If not, this cycle of ethnic recession will continue.
To specifically address the particularized training and reemployment challenges for the most vulnerable communities, including African Americans, Latinos, the elderly, and people with disabilities, we recommend, as a start, these direct solutions:
1. Establishing an Interagency Task Force in the Federal Administration.
2. Strengthening enforcement and monitoring of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prevents employment discrimination against individuals on the basis of race and ethnicity.
3. Integrate universal, age-appropriate, and culturally-relevant financial education opportunities into the K-12 curriculum and into post-secondary and community-based education settings.
4. Passing the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act which increases Pell Grant scholarships; invests in HBCUs; and lowers interest rates on student loans
5. Eliminating credit-checks as a condition for employment due to their disproportionate impact on candidates of color. Even for entry level jobs, or for jobs where there is no requirement or opportunity to handle money, the criteria of a clean credit record is often applied despite evidence that an imperfect credit record is not an accurate predictor of job competence or workplace theft.
We believe in the Obama administration's effort to revitalize the economy as a whole, but also recognize that implicit racial bias in the employment sector has a significant impact on the disproportionate disparities in unemployment we see today. The recession and the problems encompassed therein are nothing new for African-Americans and Latinos and merely a continuation of the plight of the last several decades. Fixing the economy must not just be about a return to pre-recession conditions, but forging a new path to economic sustainability for all.
*Kenneth Chandler, public policy associate, contributed to this article.
This post originally appeared on New Deal 2.0.
Jason Pinter: New York City on the Brink: The Truth Behind "The Darkness"
Loading comments… 
I'll tell you what's happening. We are either offshoring jobs or we are importing Indians into the US to replace Americans.
At Microsoft last year we switched to only India owned vendors in our group. All the Americans who worked for American vendors were let go. That included the only Black female programmer I have ever worked with. She was very bright, hard working, and very profession
What could he do to stop us? End the federal regulation
What will Obama do? Nothing.
the Indians coming here are future generation Americans. They are way smarter than blacks on unemployme
Have you thought of the consequenc
This needs to be rethought. We need to teach children how the economy operates. Here is some starting material, in the form of questions that need to be addressed:
1) What is the source of economic value?
2) What is a national economy?
3) How can we assess the potential of a national economy?
4) How can an economy support its national citizenry one moment, then abruptly fail to do so a short time later? Or, what is an economic crisis?
5) How do political relationsh
6) A broader question, which must be addressed within any educationa
7) What effect does the economy have on our social, cultural, political and ecological environmen
8) How do advances in technology effect the organizati
9) What is commodific
10) What causes poverty in a system of abundance?
11) What proof is there that production is the fundamenta
Also we, the people, need to make it known to our elected officials (good luck) to prevent so many jobs from going overseas. Cheap labor + cheap products = huge dollars stuffed into the pockets of owners of businesses
There is no reason to hire Americans. Doesn't matter how smart or hard working you are. We just laid off 5,000 of the best and brightest at Microsoft. Do you know how hard it is to get hired there?
Geez people. Wake up.
The group(s) who control the means of production and the means of hirings and firings will always do better.
Case in point, China now have more control over the means of production than does the US. Short of a major change in the current world order, it is predicted that by 2050 they will surpass the US and other european economies to become the world greatest economic superpower
So start sharpening your Mandarin as they will be in control.
Our own government issued H-1B ( and other) work visas so that corporatio
So your job will end too. Everyone, except the billionair
just about all of the money spent on this crisis (the big money being on the fed balance sheet, not the stimulus bill) has gone to the banks, pure and simple as that.
unwind the big banks and stop the flow of our wealth to them in order to help out main street and cure the unemployme
http://www
We now have less private sector jobs than in 1999. I guess all the stories about Bush and business hollowing out the country were true. The only job growth has been in the public sector.
How can all this be in America's interest? Profitable multinatio
Did you consider the fact that President Obama has white relatives?
Some of us are unemployed
why do Asians have much lower unemployme
why are graduation rates amongst Asians much higher than blacks or hispanics.
look at these before crying wolf !!
sick and tired of race baiting !!
They want the federal government involved in every detail of our lives including the labor market. So they are also a corporate communist.
With only limited money available from Congress, small firms will far exceed the new job totals that can result from direct government employment
SUGGESTION
a. Establish Stock Market and Investment Regulation
b. Sharply encourage employee stock ownership by every means possible.
c. Establish Employment Tax Credits for small firms that cover the cost of collecting social security taxes, sales taxes, income taxes and other local, state and national revenues.
d. Establish a Jobs Tax Credit Program to create millions of new jobs. See: A Human Investment Tax Credit Program at: http://www
e. Expand a Tax Credit Program for employers who create new opportunit
f. Dramatical
g. Create much better means to rapidly increase financing for small businesses so they can grow as fast as possible.
Repeat until the public, Congress and the White House understand that: INCENTIVES THAT CREATE JOBS WILL PAY FOR THEMSELVES
Support disruptive
I'm a political independen
A few of the incentives we suggested were included in the Employment Tax Credit of 1977. That created more jobs than any previous legislatio
I'm also involved in the developmen
Later, vehicles with these technologi
Hard to believe? You bet! But, Rowan University has validated fractional Hydrogen technology
The experiment
They indicate one gallon of water can replace 200 barrels of oil!
Let's accelerate the process!
Why is it that black authors when citing unemployme
:) a little too convenient to prove their supposed "theory" thats what it is.
http://ame