http://www.suntimes.com/6397110-417/the-disappearing-black-middle-class.html Millions of Americans endured financial calamities in the recession. But for many in the black community, job loss has knocked them out of the middle class and back into poverty. And some experts warn of a historic reversal of hard-won economic gains that took black people decades to achieve. “History is going to say the black middle class was decimated” over the past few years, said Maya Wiley, director of the Center for Social Inclusion. “But we’re not done writing history.” Adds Algernon Austin, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy: “The recession is not over for black folks.” In 2004, the median net worth of white households was $134,280, compared with $13,450 for black households, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by the Economic Policy Institute. By 2009, the median net worth for white households had fallen 24 percent to $97,860; the median net worth for black households had fallen 83 percent to $2,170, according to the institute. Austin described the wealth gap this way: “In 2009, for every dollar of wealth the average white household had, black households only had two cents.” Austin thinks more black people than ever before could fall out of the middle class because the unemployment rate for college-educated blacks recently peaked and blacks are overrepresented in state and local government jobs. Those are jobs that are being eliminated because of massive budget shortfalls. Since the end of the recession, which lasted from 2007 to 2009, the overall unemployment rate has fallen from 9.4 to 9.1 percent, while the black unemployment rate has risen from 14.7 to 16.2 percent, according to the Department of Labor. Last April, black male unemployment hit the highest rate since the government began keeping track in 1972. Only 56.9 percent of black men over 20 were working, compared with 68.1 percent of white men. Even college-educated blacks fared worse than their white counterparts in the recession. In 2007, unemployment for college-educated whites was 1.8 percent; for college-educated blacks it was 2.7 percent. Now, the college-educated unemployment rate is 3.9 percent for whites and 7 percent for blacks. Nearly 8 percent of African Americans who bought homes from 2005 to 2008 have lost them to foreclosure, compared with 4.5 percent of whites, according to an estimate by the Center for Responsible Lending.
Interesting post and socioeconomic situation. But the question to me is, how will it play out. On the one hand, it may lead to a call for more government handouts and a strengthening of "cradle to grave" welfare. To take from the 'haves' and give to the 'have nots'. Or perhaps add to this a new class of lawsuits against corporate america for failing to properly hire men & women of color. Or maybe it will lead to revolution (of sorts). Maybe it will lead black americans to strongly consider the depths of debt and failed socialist policies, big government, high taxation and other such policies that have led to all this and lead them to take a more political solution via the ballot and political activism. The reason this solution seems more far fetch is a lack of true leadership in the black community so far as I see it.
I remember when creating a black middle class was Nixon's strategy to undermine blacks being on the political left. He planned to pull the smart ones into the conservative white culture. Now, I guess the smart ones will reassimilate into the leftist ghetto. That Republican strategy didn't last long.
Couldn't have been anything to do with a pointless war or terrible financial regulatory policy. Both parties are screwing over the country. Can you point to any right or left wing president that was being financially responsible over the last 30 years? Clinton is the closest we got & he needed a tech bubble to do it...
Wow, very impressive. Single sentence, didn't even need any punctuation & it puts the blame on poor people too. What more can we ask for? My world view has just shifted as much as yours.
99 weeks of unemployment benefits. If there were just a few weeks of these benefits, people would have to sink or swim, sure. So how does one "swim?" 1) By taking a job. With a job, you might actually get a raise, unlike unemployment. You also force spending by your employer on your provisions, etc. 2) By making your own job. Become a consultant, start a company, etc. Now you're in position to hire those who would otherwise sink.
Even a Johnny-come-lately like Nixon wouldn't have screwed this up. Truman was different. When he pulled this middle class strategy on moving unions to the right, it worked for all time. But I quit voting after the best president quit. Wilson gave the smart Indians jobs and hanged the ones who wouldn't form into reservations. You got any Indians riding through your back yard? You see what I'm saying? He ruined me for the rest of them.
what if there is no job? and how does one "make their own job" if they don't have the capital to make one?
Classic Liberservative thinking. Everyone lives in a vacuum where curing unemployment can be boiled down to two bullet points.
