Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe that there are no jobs available for them. The number of discouraged workers in the U.S. increased sharply during the current recession, rising to 717,000 in the first quarter of 2009, a 70-percent increase from the first quarter of 2008. Relative to their share of the labor force, young people, blacks, and, to a lesser extent, Hispanics and men were over-represented among discouraged workers.
Uninsured children by poverty status, age, race and Hispanic origin
In 2007, 8.1 million children under 18 years old were without health insurance. Children in poverty and Hispanic children were more likely to be uninsured.
American schools are more segregated by race and class today than they were on the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, 43 years ago. The average white child in America attends a school that is 77 percent white, and where just 32 percent of the student body lives in poverty. The average black child attends a school that is 59 percent poor but only 29 percent white. The typical Latino kid is similarly segregated; his school is 57 percent poor and 27 percent white.
Overall, a third of all black and Latino children sit every day in classrooms that are 90 to 100 percent black and Latino.
On MLK Day, some thoughts on segregated schools, Arne Duncan, and President Obama
Although the position of young black men in the city’s labor force was already tenuous before the recession, it was significantly impacted during the recession; this demographic group’s unemployment rate increased by 11 percentage points, reaching nearly 34 percent during the period January 2009 through June 2010—the highest of all demographic groups.
In addition, the employment-population ratio for young black men decreased to 25 percent in 2009–2010, meaning that only one in four young black men had a job in the city during the period January 2009 through June 2010.
On average, black men and women were unemployed for 36 weeks, almost two months longer than the mean duration of unemployment for all New Yorkers.
Black men experienced the largest absolute increase in their unemployment rate during the recession—from 9 percent in 2006 (already high) to 17.9 percent in 2009… which effectively doubled black men’s unemployment in the city.
Western and Pettit calculated that if current incarceration trends hold, fully 68 percent of African-American male high school dropouts born from 1975 to 1979 (at the start of the upward trend in incarceration rates) will spend time living in prison at some point in their lives.
Toxic Persons (via Bill Harris)
More young (20 to 34-year-old) African American men without a high school diploma or GED are currently behind bars (37 percent) than employed (26 percent).
Collateral Costs: Incarceration’s Effect on Economic Mobility
One in 87 working-aged white men is in prison or jail, compared with 1 in 36 Hispanic men and 1 in 12 African American men.
One in 9 African American children (11.4 percent), 1 in 28 Hispanic children (3.5 percent) and 1 in 57 white children (1.8 percent) have an incarcerated parent.
Collateral Costs: Incarceration’s Effect on Economic Mobility
Based on the national definition of poverty – $4 a day – more than half of South Africans (54%) are poor. And, as the chart below shows, poverty and inequality still reflect race. While the African community’s access to services such as housing, water and electricity has improved substantially, its income continues to lag far behind other social groups. By international standards, this link between race and poverty is remarkably strong. Nor have there been too many signs of this link weakening.
https://community.oecd.org/community/factblog/blog/2010/06/18/south-africa-winners-and-losers
Only two out of every five people in the US working in service occupations receive retirement benefits, life insurance, or paid sick days. Almost one third of employed Black and Hispanic women work in this occupation.
