Friday, February 26, 2016

[NJFAC] Black imprisonment effect on unemployment data

America has locked up so many black people it has warped our sense of reality, Guo, Wash. Post, 2/26/16
....  

The most recent report puts the white unemployment rate at around 4.5 percent. The black unemployment rate? About 8.8 percent.

But the economic picture for black Americans is far worse than those statistics indicate. The unemployment rate only measures people who are both living at home and actively looking for a job. The hitch: A lot of black men aren't living at home and can't look for jobs — because they're behind bars.

Though there are nearly 1.6 million Americans in state or federal prison, their absence is not accounted for in the figures that politicians and policymakers use to make decisions. As a result, we operate under a distorted picture of the nation's economic health.

There's no simple way to estimate the impact of mass incarceration on the jobs market. But here's a simple thought experiment. Imagine how the white and black unemployment rates would change if all the people in prison were added to the unemployment rolls.

According to a Wonkblog analysis of government statistics, about 1.6 percent of prime-age white men (25 to 54 years old) are institutionalized. If all those 590,000 people were recognized as unemployed, the unemployment rate for prime-age white men would increase from about 5 percent to 6.4 percent.

For prime-age black men, though, the unemployment rate would jump from 11 percent to 19 percent. That's because a far higher fraction of black men — 7.7 percent, or 580,000 people — are institutionalized.

    ....  June Zaccone  

Thursday, February 18, 2016

[NJFAC] Black middle class is struggling - income is a big factor

The black middle class is decidedly losing ground
The top fifth of black households in 2014 earned on average what their white counterparts earned in 1979. And if the racial disparities in income are large, the disparities in wealth are massive.

See www.urban.org/urban-wire/stalled-struggling-black-middle-class for an extensive analysis and graphs illustrating several components of the problem.

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Monday, February 8, 2016

[NJFAC] Uber: On the Road to Nowhere

UBER drivers. A convenient app and drivers choose their hours. But they don't control working conditions and the company can fire ("deactivate") them at will. The company does not contribute to a health plan, or pay into Social Security, Medicare, or workers' comp. Here's the best analysis I've seen on the Uber phenomenon, by Steve Greenhouse, a veteran labor reporter.
 
Uber: On the Road to Nowhere, American Prospect (Winter 2016)


Submitted by: Frank Stricker, author of Why American Lost the War on Poverty--and How to Win It (2007)

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