5
Monday, January 17, 1983
Daily Ncbraskan
Ecoroimc btmo'deim on dmwMevs u blacks, womniein)
Unemployment fieures
enough, but over time they yet scarier.
Anyone who thinks the economy treats
people much more fairly now than when
Fiscnhower was in office should learn that
-
k
.. i :
Eric
Peterson
the same groups have been hunting for jobs
for years and years. The numbers are there
for anyone to look at.
To be young, black and female is to
have three strikes against you in the
American job market. Black women aged
16 to 19 have always suffered the highest
unemployment rate of any social group
since the statistics were first collected in
1954.
In that year, 20.6 percent of black
tecnacc females lookinc for work had no
jobs; in 1981 the figure was 38.3 percent.
(The average unemployment rate during
the worst part of the Great Depression in
1933 was 24.9 percent.)
livery year, for more than 25 years,
black teenage women have had the highest
unemployment rate of any group
measured, but they are not alone. There are
consistent patterns in employment and
unemployment in this country, patterns
that haven't really changed in good times
or bad. The simplest way to show it is to
divide employable groups into two cate
gories the lucky and the unlucky:
LUCKY
Male
White
Salaried
Full time
Over 20 years old
UNLUCKY
Female
Black or other
n on -white
Blue collar
Fart time
Teenage "
For white males, the economy can
be grim enough, but for blacks or women,
for people in blue collar jobs or people new
to the job market, unemployment figures
have nearly always been worse than for the
whole population.
There arc only two exceptions: white
women over 20 have been about equal or
better in unemployment rates to white
men in the same age group for the last
several years, and the unemployment rate
for white male teenagers is worse than the
rate for white female teenagers.
But the pattern is terribly simple. While
the general unemployment rate in 1981
was 7.6 percent, and 6.9 percent for white
women, it was 14.1 percent for blacks,
14.3 percent for black women, and 10.3
percent for blue collar workers. These pro
portions have held true for roughly 30
years.
However, unemployment isn't the only
economic difficulty the "unlucky" people
have faced. They are the "last hired, first
lired. When economic conditions are
good, blacks and teenagers and unskilled
workers may. .get modest pay increases, but
their jobs are pretty insecure when
company profits are low.
As well as being unemployed longer and
more often, people in these groups also
get lower pay for the same work done by
other, apparently more favored groups,
and usually have lower prestige jobs to
begin with. Blacks and women sometimes
find access into certain labor unions hard.
F.ducation is also harder for these groups
to come by.
The inescapable conclusion is that a
permanent underclass has been formed,
despite publicly expressed ideals to the
contrary. The desperation of having no
certain income tends to fall on the same
people year after year and unemployment
benefits run out - if you can get a job to
earn them in the first place. The burden of
hard times is much heavier on some
shoulders than others.
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a. You give your car to the gas station as payment for the gas b. You
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card to get money.
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HANK
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