I am deeply tempted to quote Jason L. Riley’s Wall Street Journal column on black economic progress in full but will just quote a couple of substantial chunks of it:
The black American worker has had a pretty good run in recent years, though you might not know it because the political left and its allies in the press prefer to accentuate black struggle. Racial inequality shouldn’t be ignored but neither should black progress.
Between 1963 and 2012, unemployment averaged 5.1% for whites and 11.1% for blacks. The 2008 financial crisis hit black workers especially hard, with unemployment reaching 16.8% in March 2010. Under President Obama, black unemployment declined but didn’t fall below double-digits until the seventh year of his presidency. When he left office in January 2017, the black jobless rate was 7.5%. Under President Trump it dipped to 5.3% in August 2019, then fell to a record-low 4.7% in April of this year.
Positive black economic trends undermine the liberal argument that we live in a society stacked against certain racial and ethnic minority groups, so these trends tend to get played down or spun to advance a left-wing agenda. Last week’s jobs report put black unemployment in June at 6%. Bloomberg, Reuters and other news outlets were quick to note that this was the second consecutive month that black unemployment had increased. That’s true—the rate was 5.6% in May—and perhaps a trend is developing. Still, one month of 6% unemployment is hardly cause for panic, and other data on black workers suggest that the labor market remains strong.
For starters, the black employment rate of 58.9% is only 1.5 percentage-points lower than the white rate of 60.4%, which is a historically narrow racial gap. Second, labor-force participation rates for black workers, which have tended to trail those of white workers, now surpass them slightly. The trend started before the pandemic and has been noticeable for most of the past year. In June 2020, 62.2% of working-age blacks were employed or looking for a job, versus 61.9% of whites. Last month the rate was 62.6% for blacks and 62.3% for whites.
with this conclusion:
What’s more likely to improve black outcomes in the workforce are better black outcomes in the classroom, not a return to irresponsibly low interest rates. Addressing the racial achievement gap, which worsened under Covid, ought to be a priority. Which makes the nation’s teachers unions and their opposition to school choice a far bigger problem than Mr. Powell’s Fed.
I don’t know that school choice is the solution or even part of the solution. I think it’s fair to suggest that big city teachers’ unions need to change their focus from protecting their turf to improving educational outcomes. Maybe parents and students need to change what they’re doing as well. If you’re going to blame everything on racism and, in particular, “systemic racism” you need to include an explanation of why the economic fortunes of black Americans improved as much as they did from 2017-2019.
I’ve already given my explanation: I think that restricting immigration of entry level workers helps black Americans.
1) What would be responsibly low interest rates as opposed to irresponsible?
2) Shouldn’t we be encouraging lazy white people to get out and work?
Steve
Where has anybody (other than you) said anybody was lazy?
That’s good news.
Black employment in my world is nearly invisible as so many work for the government inside government offices.
What is visible are the Black faces in the mugshots and attendant fear of violence justified by the cushioned White Liberals in the suburbs.
Dave- That has always been the prevailing conservative idea about why blacks are not working. If whites not have a lower LFPR then wouldn’t it be safe to assume it was also due to laziness?
Steve
Blacks are not working because they cant get past slavery and the humiliation of doing entry level work. Entry level positions for Black overlords are of course limited.
That may be the case now but if so it’s a fairly recent development. Most agricultural work in the Southeast, e.g. picking oranges, picking peaches, was done by black agricultural workers. Almost overnight they were replaced by (largely illegal) workers from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. I posted on this subject a while ago.