Jobs & Unemployment
White Recession, Black Depression
Published September 14, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Barbara Ehrenreich published her fourth and final NYT column on poverty in the U.S. this week, raising the perennial issue of racial economic inequality. (Our previous coverage of Ehrenreich's pieces are here, here, and here.) From 2000 to 2007, African-American employment and incomes fell almost 3%. Now, as the "Great Recession" has engulfed us all, the unemployment rate among African-Americans is over 15% (compared to less than 9% for whites). The black-white and overall ethnic/racial wealth gap is nothing new, but it is easily overlooked at times of crisis when competing senses of "we're all in it together" versus white racial resentment towards President Obama blind us to the disproportionate burden African-Americans face in economic downturns.
Remembering 9/11's Low-Wage Victims
Published September 11, 2009 @ 09:55AM PT
I came to my work in the post-Katrina Gulf Coast in part because I worked with survivors of the terrorist attacks in Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. I worked for a non-profit, Seedco, that ran the Lower Manhattan Small Business Recovery Program - providing grants, loans and technical assistance to small businesses around Ground Zero. We were intimately and intensely involved with assisting commercial residents rebuild their livelihoods and their futures.
Frequently covered in the press since that horrific day 8 years ago are the families of the financial titans or workhorses who were killed in the building fires and collapse. Less frequently heard from are the survivors of the thousands of low-wage workers who supported the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) industry most associated with the World Trade Center. As we remember and grieve, I ask us to honor the restaurant workers, livery drivers, janitors and other low-wage workers who were disproportionately economically devastated by the terrorist attacks on 9/11.
Recessions Bad News for Unions
Published September 08, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
I find this depressingly curious:
"for every point's worth of increase in the unemployment rate, approval of labor unions goes down by 2.6 points." The inestimable Nate Silver leaves us alone to stew over these results from Gallup, which find that support for organized labor in the US has fallen below 50% for the first time. Worse, respondents clearly think unions are on the decline.
Latin@s Most Likely To Die on Job
Published September 07, 2009 @ 06:47AM PT
That's a harsh title to jolt you out of your Labor Day holiday reprieve, I know. Courtesy of Poverty & Policy, I see that the National Council of La Raza has released a report on Latin@s in the low-wage job market. Like the National Employment Law Project study we covered last Wednesday, NCLR's research reveals a dangerous and highly unequal workplace for low-wage Latino workers, many of them immigrants. The report shows that smart, ethical immigration reform is the "first step" towards reducing worker exploitation and improving the job market for all low-wage workers.
1 in 5 Elderly are Poor
Published September 05, 2009 @ 10:38AM PT
When calculating poverty using the modernized measure from the National Academy of Sciences, the number of older adults living in poverty is nearly double the official rate. The whole article is worth reading for the ways current poverty numbers - among children, single mothers, in cities, etc. - would change if we updated the federal poverty measure.
Everyday that I blog I find more features, reports, news items, etc. than I can possibly cover here. But I don't want to let these stories slip by. So consider this your weekend afternoon news dump on poverty in the U.S.
Low-Wage Workers Routinely Cheated
Published September 02, 2009 @ 12:46PM PT
A powerhouse of scholars has just released a comprehensive report documenting systemic, "widespread" wage violations in the low-wage market. 68% of more than 4,000 low-wage workers surveyed (average wage was $8.02/hour) had experienced at least one wage violation in the week prior. Wage violations included: not receiving overtime pay, not being given any breaks, having deductions illegally taken from paychecks, being forced to work past their scheduled finishing time, having their tips inappropriately garnished, and being paid less than the legal minimum wage. Critical to keep in mind as you advocate for workers' rights: the overall quality of the the workplace correlates strongly to the likelihood of wage violations.
Segregation, Self-Help & Gangs
Published September 02, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
What do Thrivent Financial, New Orleans's Mardi Gras Krewe Zulu, and Salvadorans With Pride all have in common? Their roots are in mutual aid societies providing insurance, benefits and assistance for racial/ethnic minority groups at a time when these groups could not access help in mainstream society.
How are these groups different? Today, Thrivent Financial is a Fortune 500 financial services company for Lutherans with $61B in assets. The African-American Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club is one of the premier Mardi Gras attractions in New Orleans. Salvadorans With Pride is a gang of Salvadoran immigrants in suburban Long Island. All three groups were born of economic hardship and ethnic/racial segregation in the United States. Now policymakers, criminologists and social workers trying to halt gang violence are going one step further and trying to harness the youth development and social support that gangs provide.
