Unemployment Forever

I'm going to be using the word Negro in part of this speech because the information I researched used it. Is Everyone okay with that?

The fundamental, overwhelming fact is that Negro unemployment, with the exception of a few years during World War II and the Korean War, has continued at disaster levels for nearly forty years. Since 1929, the Negro worker has been tremendously affected by the movements of the business cycle and of employment. He has been hit worse by declines than whites, and proportionately helped more by recoveries.

 The 1930 Census (taken in the spring, before the depression was in full swing) showed Negro unemployment at 6.1 percent, as against 6.6 percent for whites.

By 1940, the 2 to 1, White-Negro unemployment relationship that persists to this day had clearly emerged. Whites were 14.8 percent, nonwhites 29.7 percent.

In 1963, a prosperous year, 29.2 percent of all Negro men in the labor force were unemployed at some time during the year. Almost half of these men were out of work 15 weeks or more. (although at no time during this period, save perhaps the first 2 years, did the unemployment rate for Negro males drop to anything like a reasonable level).

Dorothy Irene Height was an African American administrator, educator, social activist, and a recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal. At the age of twenty-five, she began a career as a civil rights activist when she joined the National Council of Negro Women. She fought for equal rights for both African Americans and women. In 1957, Height was named president of the National Council of Negro Women, a position she held until 1997.

In 1974, Height was named to the National Council for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, which published The Belmont Report [3]- a response to the infamous "Tuskegee Syphilis Study."

 She has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Freedom From Want Award and the Spingarm Medal from the NAACP. She has also been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

She said: "If the Negro woman has a major underlying concern, it is the status of the Negro man and his position in the community and his need for feeling himself an important person, free and able to make his contribution in the whole society in order that he may strengthen his home." 

During times when jobs were reasonably plentiful the Negro family became stronger and more stable. although, it may not be widely acknowledged, higher family incomes are unmistakably associated with greater family stability — Which comes first may be a matter for conjecture, but the conjunction of the two characteristics is unmistakable.

The problem is now more serious, the obstacles greater. As jobs become more and more difficult to find, the stability of the family becomes more and more difficult to maintain.

Just Take a look at these statistics:

Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population by sex, age, and race Source: United States Department of Labor, Department of Labor Statistics website ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/lf/aat5.txt

(Numbers in thousands)
       SEX AGE RACE Employed Unemployed Unemployment rate Civilian labor force Percent of population 
2007 M   20+    W       62,806         2,408              3.7                              65,214                       76.3 
2008                           62,304         3,179              4.9                              65,483                       76.1 
        SEX AGE RACE Employed Unemployed Unemployment rate Civilian labor force Percent of population 
2007 F      20+  W        51,996        1,930              3.6                               53,925                       60.1 
2008                           52,124         2,384             4.4                                54,508                       60.3 
       SEX AGE RACE Employed Unemployed Unemployment rate Civilian labor force Percent of population 
2007 M   20+   B         7,245          622                  7.9                              7,867                         71.2 
2008                          7,151           811                  10.2                            7,962                         71.1 
      SEX AGE RACE Employed Unemployed Unemployment rate Civilian labor force Percent of population 
2007 F    20+  B          8,240          588                  6.7                              8,828                         64.0 
2008                           8,260          732                  8.1                              8,991                         64.3 



Five years ago in 2009, the unemployment rates continued to trend upward. In March for adult men (8.8 Percent), adult women (7.0 percent), Whites (7.9 percent), Hispanics (11.4 percent) and the jobless rates for blacks (13.3 percent).