The New York Times asserts that thousands of blacks who once had government union jobs now don’t, and some of the primary reasons for this unemployment are “strong anti-government and anti-tax sentiment” as well as attempts by Republicans to weaken public sector unions.
The Times states wide unemployment among blacks exists due to the fact that public sector union jobs – which blacks have been able to occupy in the past at a higher rate – have been curbed by conservative-leaning policies that have weakened collective bargaining and by budget cuts to government programs.
According to the Times:
Today, blacks are less likely than whites to own their own homes or have sizable retirement savings, two of the primary ways most families accumulate wealth. In 2013, the median white family had net assets of $142,000 compared with $11,000 for the median black family, according to the Pew Research Center. The difficulty in closing that gap is compounded by the fact that the median income for black households is just 60 percent of that of whites.
The article offers up “an incomplete recovery” as “part of the reason” for black unemployment, but no mention is made of the job-killing policies – such as minimum wage hikes, EPA regulations, executive amnesty for illegal immigrants, and Obamacare requirements – supported by the Obama administration and like-minded Democrats, that have led black unemployment to rise in the private sector.
The Times waxes nostalgic for public sector union jobs and bloated government laden with extra programs that could provide jobs:
Thanks to a series of presidential executive orders and court decisions that began in the 1960s, a rapidly expanding public sector welcomed blacks and women who had been locked out of other corners of the labor market. With the federal government paving the way, state and local governments soon followed, and they continued to expand their work forces through the late 2000s even as the size of the federal government stabilized.
As Breitbart News reported last week, recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that foreign-born people in the United States were more likely to have a job last year than native-born Americans.
Foreign-born workers made up 16.5 percent of the U.S. labor force in 2014, compared to 13.3 percent in 2000. Hispanics represent 48.3 percent of the foreign-born labor force, and Asians 24.1 percent.
In March, a report from the Census bureau predicted that, by 2060, nearly one-fifth of America’s total population will be foreign-born, and that immigrants – legal and illegal – will see growth of 85 percent by that year.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch told the Senate Judiciary Committee in January that illegal immigrants have the right to work as much as American citizens, a perspective that will no doubt have an effect on whether black American citizens are able to find and maintain employment in their country.