African-American Middle Class Eroding As Unemployment Rate Soars

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The

unemployment situation across America is bad, no doubt. But for

African-Americans in some cities, this is not the great recession.

It’s the “outline-width: 0px; outline-style: none; outline-color: initial; color: #183a52; text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer;”

href=

“http://www.foxnews.com/topics/politics/economic-depression.htm#r_src=ramp”>Great

Depression.

Take

Charlotte, N.C., for example. It is a jewel of the “new South.” The

largest financial center outside of New York City, it’s the

showcase for next year’s Democratic National Convention. It was a

land of hope and opportunity for many blacks with a four-year

college degree or higher.

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“font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #333333;”>According to an

analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, in Charlotte, N.C., the

unemployment rate for African-Americans is 19.2 percent. If you add

in people who have given up looking for jobs, that number exceeds

20 percent, which, according to economists Algernon Austin and

William Darity, has effectively mired blacks in a

depression.

“font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #333333;”>“You’re looking

at a community that is economically depressed in my opinion,”

Austin said. “And we need action that will address that scale of

joblessness.”

“font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #333333;”>Vanessa Parker

worked hard to get ahead. She was an administrative assistant at

IBM in Charlotte. She went to night school to better herself,

graduating with a bachelor’s degree in finance. Parker and her

husband saved up enough money to move from a bad neighborhood to a

quiet, middle-class street. But instead of moving up in the

company, IBM moved out. Now she works at a big-box store

for “outline-width: 0px; outline-style: none; outline-color: initial; color: #183a52; text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer;”

href=

“http://www.foxnews.com/topics/politics/minimum-wage.htm#r_src=ramp”>minimum

wage.

“It’s

very frustrating and it makes you wonder why are you doing it,” she

told me. “Because it seems like the more that you try to get ahead,

seems like you’re falling back.”

“It

takes time to build anything. But it doesn’t take very long to

destroy it,” says Patrick Graham of the Urban League of Central

Carolina.

His

organization runs classes on empowerment, hoping to raise the

self-esteem of the unemployed and give them the confidence to take

charge of their lives.

“It’s

heartbreaking,” he told me. “In a sense that you watch people who

are viable who have talent who can’t necessarily find the job

opportunity that they need.”

“font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #333333;”>Derrick Foxx is

another example of how deeply this recession has affected the black

middle class. Foxx was laid off from Phillip Morris Tobacco 2 years

ago and hasn’t worked a day since.

Vanessa Parker, Foxx was trying to better himself, attaining an

MBA. Though he has sent out more than 1,000 resumes, and contacted

more than 1,000 companies, he is still unemployed.

“I

got out of school and didn’t get the job I was looking for,” he

says. “Then I went back, got an MBA degree, you know, and I’m

almost like – wow – was this really worth it?”

It’s

quite a sign of the times that people are questioning whether their

education was worth all the time, effort and expense. Education is

supposed to be the gateway to prosperity. But according to

economist William Darity from Duke University, education does not

provide the same key for African-Americans to open that gate as it

does for others.

“It’s

really, actually, a tragedy because people have invested a

tremendous amount of effort – devoted the motivation and time to

acquire degrees,” he said. “But it doesn’t provide them with the

same degree of protection that it provides others in this

society.”

There

are jobs to be had in Charlotte. But African-Americans are not

sharing in the recovery in the way others are.

Devah

Pager, a sociologist at Princeton University, conducted

groundbreaking research in Wisconsin and found that black men were

less likely to be called back on a job application than white men

with a criminal record. The statistics went like this:

Job

call-backs:
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White non-criminal: 34%
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White criminal: 17%
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Black non-criminal: 14%
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Black criminal: 5%

“font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #333333;”>According to

Darity, “The differential in unemployment between blacks and

non-blacks in the U.S. is perhaps one of the most dramatic

indicators of discrimination in this society.”

So –

what to do about it?

The

Congressional Black Caucus has been leaning on style=

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href=

“http://www.foxnews.com/topics/politics/obama-administration/barack-obama.htm#r_src=ramp”>President

Obama to address the epidemic of black unemployment on his

watch. So far, the president has resisted the notion of job

programs specifically targeting African-Americans. His position is

that a rising tide will lift all boats. But the tide remains out as

far as job creation goes.

The

Urban League’s Patrick Graham believes small business should be the

major driver to employ African-Americans.

“It’s

gonna really not just take hard work, but it’s gonna really take

some creative thinking in terms of entrepreneurship and other

things to really get us out of this,” he said.

The

recession – or depression — in the black community is rapidly

eroding the black middle class.

its convention in Boston this week, the National Urban League

released a troubling report on that topic. It found that the

recession has virtually wiped out all of the economic gains blacks

made in the past 30 years.

And a

new report from the Pew Research Center drives home just how bad

things are out there.

found that in 2005, the average net worth for white households was

$134, 992. For black households, it was $12,124. (That’s not a

typo.)
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In 2009, the number dropped to $113,149 for whites and a paltry

$5,700 for blacks.

“font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #333333;”>Algernon Austin

believes the government hasn’t taken the problem seriously enough.

“It’s just one step below the scale of the Great Depression,” he

said. “But we haven’t treated it as a crisis of that

magnitude.”

“font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #333333;”>Despite their

plight, both Vanessa Parker and Derrick Foxx have remained

remarkably upbeat. Foxx finds purpose in coaching girls’

basketball, and helping disadvantaged youth. “My biggest thing is

— if I’m helping others, you know, it takes the pain off of me,”

he says. “Because I see someone else who’s doing worse than I’m

doing.”

“font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #333333;”>Vanessa Parker is

struggling to hang on to what she has built. She doesn’t want to go

back to the gunshots and – as she says – the “boom, boom, boom”

music of her old neighborhood.

And

she truly believes better times are ahead.

“On

many days I went to bed crying because I feel that I can’t get the

job that I deserve. But then when I think about it, that a better

day is coming — that keeps me going. It keeps me going to that

$7.25 job. You know, because something is better than nothing,” she

said.

John Roberts

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