Left Margin

A Pall over the Holidays - the Joblessness Crisis
Intensifies

By Carl Bloice
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board
BC
December 15, 2011

http://www.blackcommentator.com/452/452_lm_pall.php

It was fascinating to observe the response, across the
political spectrum, to the November unemployment
statistics. Pundits on the right and left were quick to
correctly point out that there was hardly anything
positive or hopeful about the numbers. Republican
Michele Bachmann, who opposes extending jobless
benefits, hypocritically crowed that "the lower numbers
are being propped up by huge numbers of Americans
dropping out and giving up on trying to find a job. The
labor participation rate dropped again to a tragically
low percentage." She must be overjoyed. Earlier this
year she expressed hoped that high jobless numbers
would help her Presidential campaign.

Others have pointed to what is, under the
circumstances, dismal news pointing to the urgency of
the crisis, its human toll, and the imperative need for
action to stimulate the economy to create jobs.

For U.S. working people, "these are the worst times
since the depth of the Great Depression," wrote Mort
Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of US News & World Report in
the Financial Times last week. "The unemployment rate,
the highest and most sustained in seven decades,
improved last month primarily because more than 300,000
people left the labor force. And the situation is even
grimmer than suggested by the dismal statistics,
calculated from a base of only 60,000 families.
Analysts have concluded that the combined unemployment
and under-employment rate is slightly above a
staggering 20 per cent of the labor force."

"Worse, 40 per cent of the jobless have been out of
work for six months or more, compared with 10 per cent
in 2007," wrote Zuckerman, also a real estate
executive. "The average period of unemployment now
exceeds 26 weeks, well above the previous peak in July
1983 of just 21.2 weeks. This is critical because the
longer that people of any age are out of work, the less
likely they are to find another job."

Economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and
Policy Research noted that "Pretty much every sector of
the economy saw a decline in jobs, but those declines
seemingly were offset by a rise in the retail sector.
We can speculate that the rise in retail was a result
of anticipating the holiday season and therefore
temporary jobs."

Jobs in construction fell for the month in a row while
manufacturing employment stayed about the same and
public worker jobs decreased by 20.000, bringing to
278,000 the number of public sector jobs lost over the
past year.

"Over the last three months, overall job growth has
averaged 143,000. It takes roughly 90,000 jobs to keep
even with the growth of the labor force," wrote Baker.
"At this rate, it will take close to 200 months, or 16
years, to make up for the 10-million-job deficit in the
economy."

Zuckerman says, "For hiring to occur at a pace that
would support recovery, we would need at least 500,000
more hires per month. Instead, payrolls today are more
than 7 million shy of where they were when the Great
Recession began."

According to the Department of Labor, employers added
120,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate
dipped from 9 percent in October to 8.6 percent.
Experts say this was a result of more people getting
jobs and others giving up on their job search
altogether. And, it goes without saying, the situation
is much worse for African Americans and in other
minority communities. The black jobless rate rose
slightly from 15.1 percent to 15.5 percent compared
with 8 percent for whites.

For Black workers the decline in labor force
participation is a major factor in what is actually a
worsening situation

"The drop in participation was entirely among women and
especially black women," economist Baker wrote December
2 (Among married women, employment rose by 194,000, so
this was not a case of women as second earners dropping
out of the labor force.) Participation numbers among
white women fell by 199,000, a decline of 0.2
percentage points. The drop among black women was
164,000, a drop of 1.2 percentage points. These monthly
numbers are highly erratic, and it is likely that at
least part of this drop will be reversed in future
months. Nonetheless there had been a trend of declining
participation rates among both white and black women
even prior to the November plunge. This suggests that
there is a real issue of women losing access to jobs;
although the December figures may show some reversal."

The decline in women's workforce participation rate is
directly related to the political right's ongoing
assault on public workers.

"Buried in the relatively positive numbers contained in
the November jobs report was some very bad news for
those who work in the public sector, the New York Times
said editorially December 4. "There were 20,000
government workers laid off last month, by far the
largest drop for any sector of the economy, mostly from
states, counties and cities.

"That continues a troubling trend that's been building
for years, one that has had a particularly harsh effect
on black workers. While the private sector has been
adding jobs since the end of 2009, more than half a
million government positions have been lost since the
recession.

"In most cases, states and cities had to lay off
workers because of declining tax revenues, or reduced
federal aid because of Washington's inexplicable
decision to focus more on the deficit in the near term
than on jobs."

"Those layoffs mean a lower quality of life when there
are fewer teachers, pothole repair crews and nurses,"
the Times continued. And then, citing a report by its
reporter Timothy Williams the previous week, the paper
noted that the cutbacks "hit black workers particularly
hard."

"Millions of African-Americans - one in five who are
employed - have entered the middle class through
government employment, and they tend to make 25 percent
more than other black workers," the editorial
continued. "Now tens of thousands are leaving both
their jobs and the middle class. Chicago, for example,
is laying off 212 employees in the upcoming fiscal
year, two-thirds of whom are black."

"Many Republicans, however, don't regard government
jobs as actual jobs, and are eager to see them
disappear. Republican governors around the Midwest have
aggressively tried to break the power of public unions
while slashing their work forces, and Congressional
Republicans have proposed paying for a payroll tax cut
by reducing federal employment rolls by 10 percent
through attrition," said the editorial. "That's 200,000
jobs, many of which would be filled by blacks and
Hispanics and others who tend to vote Democratic, and
thus are considered politically superfluous.

"The layoffs are not expected to end any time soon,"
Williams wrote. "The United States Postal Service,
where about 25 percent of employees are black, is
considering eliminating 220,000 positions in order to
stay solvent, and areas with large black populations -
from urban Detroit to rural Jefferson County, Miss. -
are struggling with budget problems that could also
lead to mass layoffs.

"The postal cuts alone - which would amount to more
than one-third of the work force - would be a blow both
economically and psychologically, employees say."

"But every layoff, whether public or private, is a
life, and a livelihood, and a family. And too many of
them are getting battered by the economic storm," said
the Times.

There was also scant good news for the group that is
consistently hit the hardest historically by
joblessness and particularly amid the current economic
crisis. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for
African Americans between 16 and 19 years old was 39.6
percent in November. That's down from 46.3 percent a
year ago but up from 37.8 in October. The black youth
workforce participation rate - 37.4 percent - has
remained practically the same over the past 12 months.

The average jobless level for young African Americans
for the third quarter of this year is 43.4 percent, up
from 40.7 for the same period last year and 30.9
percent in 2008.

For white teenagers the jobless rate is 21.4 percent,
up from 20.8 percent in November 2010 and down from
21.8 percent this October.

As could be expected, the policy responses of the two
sides of the aisle have been quite different. With most
- but not all - of the Democrats seeking to extend
existing jobless benefits and the Republican mostly
united around a proposal to reduce them. GOP
Congressional leaders are actually proposing to
decrease the number of weeks jobless benefits would be
available, execute new spending cuts and curb the pay
of federal employees. They have actually introduced a
measure to that effect into the House of
Representatives that could be voted on this week.

Meanwhile, according to the Times, "If Congress does
nothing, benefits for the long-term unemployed will
begin to expire early next year, and two million people
could lose benefits by mid-February."

It is estimated that if Congress does not act before
New Years to extend benefits nearly 6 million people
will lose federally funded unemployment compensation
over the course of next year.

According to the Center for American Progress, 1.2
million African Americans and 1 million Hispanics would
benefit from an extension of unemployment benefits.

The proportion of unemployed African Americans over the
age of 16 who have been out of work for 27 weeks or
longer as of October 2011 is 48 percent. For Hispanics
it's 39 percent.

Then there are the 99ers, those workers who have
already exhausted their unemployment benefits and about
whom there is ever hardly a mention in the major media
(about half the jobless are currently receiving no
assistance at all). There is a measure before Congress
- HR 589 - which would give them some assistance.
During a recent House of Representatives debate on
jobless benefit extension, the only member to bring the
matter up was Rep. Barbara Lee (D - Ca) who has, as
noted by Crewof42.com, brought the issue up "repeatedly
in conversations with the White House, on the House
floor, at press conferences and in meetings."

In California alone an estimated 305,000 workers will
be left without income if the benefits are not
extended. The state's unemployment rate for young
people 20 to 24 years old is 19 percent. For African
Americans as a whole the rate is nearly 20 percent and
close to 15 percent for Latinos.

"With California unemployment hovering around 12
percent, job seekers far outnumber actual jobs," said
California Labor Federation Executive Secretary-
Treasurer Art Pulaski. "It's deplorable that
Republicans in Congress and their special interest
friends are attempting to sever the one remaining
lifeline for California's jobless. California's
Republican members of Congress need to get their
priorities in order. Our state's jobless need an
extension of benefits far more than the richest 1
percent needs yet another fat tax break."

"The outlook is bleak," wrote Zuckerman. "Over 20 per
cent of companies say that employment in their firms
will never return to pre-recession levels. Another 40-
plus per cent say revenues would have to rise around 40
per cent to return to pre-recession employment levels.
Moreover, most of the new jobs available don't match
the pay, the hours or the benefits of the positions
that vanished during the recession. Millions of
Americans face a lost decade, living from paycheck to
paycheck, struggling to pay their bills, having to
borrow money and go deeper into debt."

"The prospect of losing benefits during the holiday
season takes a tremendous toll on those suffering the
hardship of unemployment," said Pulaski

______________

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Carl Bloice
is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National
Coordinating Committee of the Committees of
Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly
worked for a healthcare union

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