Press Room New Jobs Numbers, But Same Old Story | New Jobs Numbers, But Same Old Story |
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ARC Researcher, Seth Wessler writes in the Grio about how the new unemployment numbers reflect deep disparities for communities of color.
"The new unemployment numbers released today are an improvement over last month, but, by all calculations, still pretty bad. Like last month, the last year, and indeed the last 30 years, the numbers show what we already know: Blacks and other people of color are facing much higher rates of unemployment. As disturbing as the disparities are -- official black unemployment was 80 percent higher than whites in December--there's a chance it could get worse. Unless the government acts immediately to address the structural causes of racial inequities in the fallout of the recession, there's good reason to suspect that when overall unemployment rates start to fall, people of color will still be left without jobs. In fact, it's already started to happen. As of December, white unemployment fell slightly from the month before while blacks and Latinos continued to see more losses... Senate Democrats are promising a new jobs bill as soon as Monday and Majority Leader Harry Reid said, "our number one emphasis is going to be creating jobs." But as Washington moves to pull the country out of double-digit unemployment, longstanding inequities cannot be ignored. Investment in targeted job training and especially job creation is needed now. More attention needs to be paid to how discrimination and inadequate public transportation lead to the exclusion of workers of color before new policies can be effective. Finally, the jobs must be "good" jobs with benefits and living wages. As the country builds toward recovery, the question is, what kind of country will we be on the other end?"
Full text of "New Jobs Numbers, but Same Old Story for Black Workers" available here . |
Here is an excerpt from Seth's piece in The Grio:
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