Black Unemployment Rates an Ongoing Problem

Posted by Tina

Unemployment has been too high since the recovery in 2009. It has been particularly high for minorities. Many people on the right have wondered why the American people are so tolerant of this terrible statistic of economic failure. One man in the black community points to this as a chronic problem and is asking questions and seeking answers.

Black Entertainment Television Founder, Bob Johnson recently spoke about the high unemployment numbers for black Americans at The National Press Club saying, “This country would never tolerate white unemployment at 14 and 15 percent. No one would ever stay in office at 14 or 15 percent unemployment in this nation, but we’ve had that double unemployment for over 50 years.”

Mr. Johnson is right to be concerned about high unemployment numbers in the black community. A businessman, Johnson was determine to find the actual causes. To that end he had a poll conducted:

According to the poll Johnson commissioned, which was conducted by Zogby, 50 percent of African-Americans blame the “failure of the education system for minorities/African-Americans” for high unemployment among blacks, while 48 percent say the “lack of corporate commitment to hiring minorities/African-Americans” is to blame for unemployment in the black community.
Twenty-five percent of respondents blame the lack of government policies for the high rate of black unemployment. Eighteen percent don’t blame anyone or anything, and twelve percent aren’t sure.

We have known for some time that receiving a quality education has remained a key challenge for many black students. Many in poor neighborhoods are stuck in failing public schools. There are examples of remarkable achievement turnaround for black students that have managed to move into charter schools after leaving a failing school. This indicates their previous poor performance wasn’t due to a lack of learning ability and suggests that increasing opportunities for families to choose alternate schools would represent a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, the politically strong teachers union and the Democrat Party stand strongly against any plan to offer choices to black families.

Corporations are counted as a problem by some of the respondents in the poll. There may be many factors that contribute to low numbers of jobs for blacks in corporate America but education and experience are both factors to consider. Most white people, educated or not, will also never make it to the top in America’s corporations due to a lack of education and experience so race is not a strong likely cause. Confidence may play a role. Perhaps like many whites, successful blacks don’t always have the confidence or ambition to try for these jobs. There are a number of highly qualified blacks on corporate boards, however. See the top 100 here. As I see it fixing education challenges will naturally lead to higher numbers of minorities and blacks in corporate America, including as a result of corporations being founded by black and Hispanic Americans. The same natural improvement will happen in all sectors of the work force with more blacks owning and operating small businesses. A stronger economy would encourage improvement in this area.

Economic policy has a profound effect on employment opportunity in the black community. Over the past four years we have suffered under policies espoused by progressive Democrats who believe that economic growth and opportunity follow government spending…they call this spending “investment” but a better word to describe what has happened is gambling or poor risk. The result of President Obama’s economic policy has been ongoing high unemployment for blacks and for everyone else. This phenomenon is repeated in state governments run by progressive democrats across the nation. States with Republican governors that have adopted smart tax and spend policies are doing much better economically than are states where Democrats are in power.

In thinking about this problem I decided that it is time once again to revisit history to see if there are policies that have worked better to improve unemployment in the black community and I found an article from January of 2011 that will serve as a history lesson. Writing for TownHall in 2011 Michael Reagan compared the unemployment situation under President Obama to that of his father, Ronald Reagan:

Ronald Reagan was a far better friend to black Americans than Barack Obama has been. Just compare the Reagan and Obama records. Under Obama, black unemployment rose from 12.6 percent in January 2009 to 16.0 percent today. This means that black unemployment has increased by more than one-fourth since Obama took office.

And the Reagan record? African-American columnist Joseph Perkins has studied the effects of Reaganomics on black America. He found that, after the Reagan tax cuts gained traction, African-American unemployment fell from 19.5 percent in 1983 to 11.4 percent in 1989. Black-owned businesses saw income rise from $12.4 billion in 1982 to $18.1 billion in 1987-an annual average growth rate of 7.9 percent. The black middle class expanded by one-third during the Reagan years, from 3.6 million to 4.8 million.

These are startling numbers. It would be foolish to dismiss them if we are serious about forever changing the unemployment conditions that persist in black communities. Two out of the three of the challenges mentioned by blacks in the Zogby poll have been addressed with some success by Republican policies but they are always challenged by Democrats and unions. This resistance is political rather than practical as union workers do better when the economy is doing well. But Republicans have their own challenges not the least of which is an image problem in the black community. Most Republicans strongly support the basic polices that made the Reagan years successful. Our challenge is how to engage the black community so that blacks will begin to trust and lend their full support for these polices by voting for candidates that will put those policies in place. This is no easy task. Democrat strategies and propaganda have worked very well to convince most blacks that Republicans are racists who hate them and work to keep them down. The liberal media and progressive pundits go out of their way to promote this lie. But if real progress is to be made this barrier will have to be destroyed and Republican leaders will have to step into the gap to show blacks they do have their best interests at heart. High unemployment over many decades suggest that activism alone will not bring blacks into the mainstream of American life. Concerned citizens must be prepared to step out of the activism box to seek practical and spiritual solutions on a one on one, community centered basis.

America is strongest when individual citizens are prepared to stand on their own and have opportunities to work and make a contribution. We know what it takes economically and educationally to achieve a better result. It is long past time to put our feet on that workable path to solve these problems. If we do that we will also have the space to begin to address whatever social and spiritual problems there may be that are holding blacks back or condemning them to a life of dependency and poverty.

Why does unemployment remain high in America, especially for blacks and minorities? In the end it is because Americans don’t have all the facts and have been persuaded to fall into closed systems of thinking. Unemployment remains high because the citizens of this country have failed to realize the lessons of history and demand policies and changes that serve all American children, that create an abundance of opportunity and a strong economy. Unemployment remains high because we continue to ignore severe social problems while blaming them on politically expedient causes. We have high unemployment because we have opted for increases in handouts and empty promises instead of common sense, practical solutions.

Solving economic and educational problems will certainly help black people to move closer to achieving the American Dream but these fixes are not magic. It will also take a strong commitment from parents, clergy, volunteer organizations, the police, and successful business people in black communities to address the social and moral problems that rob children in poor communities of, as the President says, a fair shot in life.