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What is the unemployment rate for African-Americans so high?

Why does unemployment for African-Americans remains so high?


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joko104

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Multiple choice, public poll

The unemployment rate of African Americans remains at least double that of whites and is the highest unemployment demographic. The overall economic gap remains as great.

What is most notable is that there has been NO improvement for 5 decades. There is:
The Civil Rights Act
Voting Rights Act
Forced Busing
Preference for Minority loans and contracts
Hate Crimes legislation
Outlawing racial discrimination in employment, commerce and housing
Affirmative action in education
Every increasing social, benefits and welfare programs
Neighborhood revival programs
Preferential loans in housing

Yet all that - and none has helped African-Americans in terms of unemployment, lower economic status and unemployment. 50 years of a trillion dollars and a zillion words - all that appears a failure, if not counter productive.

These ten charts show the black-white economic gap hasn

So... what is the reason(s) unemployment remains so high for African-Americans?
 
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They don't want to be successful in white culture by "being white." Compound that among other things, like drug use, and they are perfectly alright with not working. Plus, their schools tend to not be that great.
 
The unemployment rate of African Americans remains at least double that of whites and is the highest unemployment demographic. The overall economic gap remains as great.

What is most notable is that there has been NO improvement for 5 decades. There is:
The Civil Rights Act
Voting Rights Act
Forced Busing
Preference for Minority loans and contracts
Hate Crimes legislation
Outlawing racial discrimination in employment, commerce and housing
Affirmative action in education
Every increasing social, benefits and welfare programs
Neighborhood revival programs
Preferential loans in housing

Yet all that - and none has helped African-Americans in terms of unemployment, lower economic status and unemployment. 50 years of a trillion dollars and a zillion words - all that appears a failure, if not counter productive.

These ten charts show the black-white economic gap hasn

So... what is the reason(s) unemployment remains so high for African-Americans?

Of your listed law changes, it seems that one is specifically related to employment. When given a choice of hiring a person, either with or without special "protected class" status to potentially sue you, which would you hire? We now see such nonsense as disparate impact, which makes the employer prove that they are innocent of discrimination instead of making one prove that they were, in fact, discriminated against. I am not saying that alone is responsible but it certainly must enter the mind of an employer, especially if they have been burned by such a lawsuit before.
 
Of your listed law changes, it seems that one is specifically related to employment. When given a choice of hiring a person, either with or without special "protected class" status to potentially sue you, which would you hire? We now see such nonsense as disparate impact, which makes the employer prove that they are innocent of discrimination instead of making one prove that they were, in fact, discriminated against. I am not saying that alone is responsible but it certainly must enter the mind of an employer, especially if they have been burned by such a lawsuit before.

That is exactly what we saw with the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well. Hiring of Americans with Disabilities dropped sharply, because now they came with more risk.


It's not an option in the poll, but I would add that African Americans are also more likely to be competing with cheaper, illegal labor who can underbid them.
 
Sorry, I forgot to put "systemic privilege" on the list. How could I have forgotten that one? :lol:
 
Of your listed law changes, it seems that one is specifically related to employment. When given a choice of hiring a person, either with or without special "protected class" status to potentially sue you, which would you hire? We now see such nonsense as disparate impact, which makes the employer prove that they are innocent of discrimination instead of making one prove that they were, in fact, discriminated against. I am not saying that alone is responsible but it certainly must enter the mind of an employer, especially if they have been burned by such a lawsuit before.



Sounds plausible because we have become a litigious society. Perhaps the Great Philosopher
was absolutely correct when he said "kill all the lawyers," or not?
 
That is exactly what we saw with the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well. Hiring of Americans with Disabilities dropped sharply, because now they came with more risk.


It's not an option in the poll, but I would add that African Americans are also more likely to be competing with cheaper, illegal labor who can underbid them.

WOW, how did I forget adding 12,000,000 unskilled illegal immigrants on the list sucking up bottom entry jobs? If I could edit that on I would make it #10 to get it on the list!

I DEFINITELY believe that is one of the reasons. Illegal foreign workers are CHEAP and do NOT sue either. MILLIONS of no-skill and low-skill jobs have been lost in this manner. I wish I could find the link were unemployed African-Americans were suing some large corporate farms because they refused to hire African-Americans or anyone else BUT foreign laborers.
 
Because they don't know how to do a job. ANy job.
 
That is exactly what we saw with the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well. Hiring of Americans with Disabilities dropped sharply, because now they came with more risk.


It's not an option in the poll, but I would add that African Americans are also more likely to be competing with cheaper, illegal labor who can underbid them.

It's a bit more complicated than that. They didn't really drop "sharply." Some studies indicate that there is a parity in terms of employment in the past 20 years. However, it is also important to note that since the passage of the IDEA in the same year, post-school employment rates for similarily disabled persons is twice as high as those who did not have some of IDEA's transition to adulthood mandates.

However, I would also like to remind people to not exactly blame the ADA. Rehabilitation specialists had been contemplating the same issues for many decades. The problems remain the same: discrimination, low expectations, and misunderstanding about diability.

With or without protections, unemployment among the disabled population was high for many of the same reasons we teach young people to be thinking about when they are about to join the marketplace. Unemployment of persons with disabilities was estimated to be at least 50% (some as high as 75%) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. When I was growing up we institutionalized teaching kids when and when not to disclose your disability. In regard to the workplace, we tell kids to be careful about disclosing it because the consequences can harm your employment status. People with disabilities had long since been written off. Through the 1980s there was one aspiring professor who had been told that even though he wasn't "bitter" "like most other "cripples" no one would hire him as a professor because he was disabled. We still teach kids to be wary of letting people know about their "invisible" disabilities and hope or the best for their visible ones.

I get that it is legally costly for employers to be seen as discriminating toward the disabled, but I think it would be foolish to ascribe this to the ADA. Employers will use the ADA as a new excuse, but the problem far preceds 1990. Even under the best of legal circumstances, it was going on ever since the 1920s saw the rise of Rehabilitation.
 
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There's multiple reasons.

1. Poverty traps expectations
2. Traditional barometers of success not necessarily valued
3. We do have problems with how employers select employees if race becomes known
4. Postsecondary educational attainment is lower
 
Multiple choice, public poll

The unemployment rate of African Americans remains at least double that of whites and is the highest unemployment demographic. The overall economic gap remains as great.

What is most notable is that there has been NO improvement for 5 decades. There is:
The Civil Rights Act
Voting Rights Act
Forced Busing
Preference for Minority loans and contracts
Hate Crimes legislation
Outlawing racial discrimination in employment, commerce and housing
Affirmative action in education
Every increasing social, benefits and welfare programs
Neighborhood revival programs
Preferential loans in housing

Yet all that - and none has helped African-Americans in terms of unemployment, lower economic status and unemployment. 50 years of a trillion dollars and a zillion words - all that appears a failure, if not counter productive.

These ten charts show the black-white economic gap hasn

So... what is the reason(s) unemployment remains so high for African-Americans?

This article isn't directly related to employment but it might give you some ideas - Confessions of a Public Defender | American Renaissance
 
Sounds plausible because we have become a litigious society. Perhaps the Great Philosopher
was absolutely correct when he said "kill all the lawyers," or not?

The left made the laws, and now can't imagine why things aren't working out peachy king. It seems the left has been mugged by reality yet again.
 
Of your listed law changes, it seems that one is specifically related to employment. When given a choice of hiring a person, either with or without special "protected class" status to potentially sue you, which would you hire? We now see such nonsense as disparate impact, which makes the employer prove that they are innocent of discrimination instead of making one prove that they were, in fact, discriminated against. I am not saying that alone is responsible but it certainly must enter the mind of an employer, especially if they have been burned by such a lawsuit before.

Black people aren't a protected class.

And, no, the employer doesn't have to prove they are innocent. That's just absurd. The burden is on the employee/potential employee, and proving discrimination is incredibly hard. Basically, the employer can make up any reason. As long as they weren't stupid enough to go around blabbing how they don't like to hire (insert demographic), they're pretty safe.

You seriously just made this up.
 
Black people aren't a protected class.

And, no, the employer doesn't have to prove they are innocent. That's just absurd. The burden is on the employee/potential employee, and proving discrimination is incredibly hard. Basically, the employer can make up any reason. As long as they weren't stupid enough to go around blabbing how they don't like to hire (insert demographic), they're pretty safe.

You seriously just made this up.

Really? Here are some links for you to ponder on disparate impact:

Disparate Impact Discrimination | Nolo.com

Supreme Court to Hear 'Disparate Impact' Housing Case

Disparate Impact Discrimination - FindLaw
 
Multiple choice, public poll

The unemployment rate of African Americans remains at least double that of whites and is the highest unemployment demographic. The overall economic gap remains as great.

What is most notable is that there has been NO improvement for 5 decades. There is:
The Civil Rights Act
Voting Rights Act
Forced Busing
Preference for Minority loans and contracts
Hate Crimes legislation
Outlawing racial discrimination in employment, commerce and housing
Affirmative action in education
Every increasing social, benefits and welfare programs
Neighborhood revival programs
Preferential loans in housing

Yet all that - and none has helped African-Americans in terms of unemployment, lower economic status and unemployment. 50 years of a trillion dollars and a zillion words - all that appears a failure, if not counter productive.

These ten charts show the black-white economic gap hasn

So... what is the reason(s) unemployment remains so high for African-Americans?

What ya' think joko. Has your poll been gamed?
 
There is no one answer, there is a little bit of most of these things at play:

1. poverty, poverty leads to bad education, poor choices, feeling of hopelessness, crime and jail time.
2. bad education and poor choices leads often to many children with multiple women, this often leads to more bad choices resulting in either domestic violence or crime to pay for your family life-style which leads to jail time.
3. poverty, bad education, hopelessness, one parent or two parent families who work themselves into the ground as working poor, leaving the child to be raised on the streets where the gangs have an easy target, leading again to crime and jail time
4. drugs, crime, jail time (all I have to say really)
5. general discrimination in the US against black people (both conscious and unconscious discrimination) because who would you rather see coming to your door selling/delivering/repairing things?

this guy officersmall.jpg or this guy article-0-0D1F344300000578-218_306x444.jpg

Like it or not, a lot of people would say easy, the black person coming to my door as door to door salesman/delivery guy/repair man/plumber would have made a lot of people feel a bit uneasy whereas the second guy looks a lot less threatening as a door to door salesman/delivery guy/repair man/plumber.

But if you would have let the black person in the house you would have been very safe because this is the unfortunately murdered police officer Kevin Jordan, in uniform he would have looked like this

Jordan_K2_resize.jpg

whereas our white guy looks something like this

anders-breivik.jpg

His name is Anders Behring Breivik and he killed 69 people on an island in Norway, the crime of these people? Being social democrats. After his massacre (because there is no other name for it) he shot and killed two 14 year old kids, seven 15 year old kids, eight 16 year old kids, sixteen 17 year old kids, seventeen 18 year old persons, five 19 year old persons, three 21 year old persons, two 23 year old persons, two 43 year old persons and one person respectively of 20/25/27/28/30/45/51 year old. And before he went on a killing spree with guns he bombed the Norwegian capital killing another 8 people.

But still, only looking at the first set of pictures, most would have chosen the white person to come to their homes.

6. specific discrimination, as in discrimination against people who have criminal records (which a lot of the times are black applicants.
7. substandard schooling, etc. etc. etc. etc.
 

The protected classification is race. Not black.

White people are protected by racial discrimination laws too. Why did you not count them as a special protected class?

Your first link says the burden is on the employee to provide evidence, so thanks for proving me right, I guess?
 
I believe automotion and manufacturing jobs moving offshore are major causes.
 
The protected classification is race. Not black.

White people are protected by racial discrimination laws too. Why did you not count them as a special protected class?

Your first link says the burden is on the employee to provide evidence, so thanks for proving me right, I guess?

Using your very broad definition of disparate impact (by including white folks) then try to defend the NBA which has a hugely disproportionally high number of black players just as hockey has the reverse. It is easy to define the non-proportional outcome but much harder to identify (or correct) the cause of this alleged "racism". Should the NBA or NHL be forced to change policy (standards for getting hired/drafted) until they achieve some sort of racial diversity quota?
 
This article isn't directly related to employment but it might give you some ideas - Confessions of a Public Defender | American Renaissance

Interesting article.

Indeed so.

Smacks of unvarnished truth and years of actual first person observation. Given all the behavioral mal-adaptations and vastly dispersant value system from the rest of what one would call 'normal' society, is it any wonder these communities are in such a sad state? Yet their community leaders still go around and 'blame whitey' or the 'establishment' for all their ills. From reading this article, I come to the conclusion that the changes needed must largely come from these communities themselves and their leadership.
 
Using your very broad definition of disparate impact (by including white folks) then try to defend the NBA which has a hugely disproportionally high number of black players just as hockey has the reverse. It is easy to define the non-proportional outcome but much harder to identify (or correct) the cause of this alleged "racism". Should the NBA or NHL be forced to change policy (standards for getting hired/drafted) until they achieve some sort of racial diversity quota?
Look at the MLB. In the last several years the percentage of black players in MLB has been roughly 8%, while the percentage of blacks in the overall general population is roughly 14%. Black leaders and some players have been hammering about this, demanding action, new league policies, starting programs, and so on. They feel this is a disparity that needs to be rectified.

Yet, back in the 1980s, the percentage of blacks in the overall general population was also roughly 14%, and the percentage of black players was roughly 24%... and nobody said a word about that disparity needing rectifying. Not a peep.

Note: The percentages are rough, and may vary a percent or two in either direction, but they're pretty close. The point is what's important here, not the literal numbers.
 
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