African-Americans Hit Especially Hard By Weakened Economy

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MICHEL MARTIN, host:

Now we turn to the economy. Economists who focus on African-American issues began warning more than a year ago, that a recession would hit blacks particularly hard. That prediction has proven to be true.

Unemployment among black people stands at 15 percent, for example, while the national unemployment rate is just under 10. It's figures like these that prompted economists at Duke University and the University of North Carolina to hold a two-day African-American economic summit that ended yesterday.

Economists met with the public during the day but met privately at night to hash out some policy proposals. One of the organizers of this summit, Duke University professor William Darity, is with us now. Welcome, thank you so much for joining us.

Mr. WILLIAM DARITY (Professor, Duke University): Thank you for having me.

MARTIN: Professor, if you could set the scene as briefly as you can, why is this recession disproportionately affecting African-Americans? Is it that unemployment was higher to begin with? Is it the kinds of jobs African-Americans tend to have were disproportionately affected by the recession? Why is it?

Mr. DARITY: I think it's because first of all, unemployment historically, has been approximately twice as high among African-Americans than the rest of the population in the United States. And I always viewed that gap in unemployment rates as an index of the degree of discrimination that prevails in this society.

So when you have a recession, and unemployment goes up for the entire population, it's going to go up even higher for the black population. In fact, the numbers that you mentioned - one of the participants in our conference, Julianne Malveaux, who is an economist and president of Bennett College; said that if you take into account individuals who are the discouraged jobless, that is people who are no longer seeking work because they've given up trying to find work, the overall unemployment rate is about 17 percent for the general population but approaches 27 percent for the black population, which is higher than the official unemployment rates that were measured for the overall population during the Great Depression.

MARTIN: And that matters, because the discouraged are no longer counted. The unemployment rate counts people who say they're looking.

Mr. DARITY: That's right, that's right.

MARTIN: Now, I understand that one proposal that came out of the summit is for the federal government to adopt a job guarantee for all citizens. I think people who were around during the Depression might remember that, but what would that entail now?

Mr. DARITY: Well, during the Depression, there wasn't actually a federal job guarantee. There was a program that was known as the Works Progress Administration, which provided the opportunity for individuals who were out of work to work for the federal government on infrastructure-building initiatives and other areas, as well. I mean, there were artists who were employed by the Works Progress Administration.

But I'm - we're taking that idea and saying let's extend it. Let's also say to all Americans that every American citizen will have the right to employment, and we can form a National Investment Employment Corps, which similar to the Works Progress Administration could focus on addressing our nation's deteriorating physical infrastructure, as well as aspects of our human infrastructure.

In particular, the Army Corps of Engineers has rated the United States infrastructure as a grade of D at present, and so there's a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done just restoring our nation's bridges, highways, roadways and the like - as well as the physical apparatus of our schools.

MARTIN: Is there any comparable economy or peer economy of the United States where there is such a jobs guarantee, that there is a right to a job?

Mr. DARITY: I'm not sure if we would consider an economy like Argentina to be a peer economy, but they have a precedent for establishing a job-guarantee type of arrangement, and I think it would be very valuable to look at their experience, both the pros and cons of that experience, in designing a program here that would be highly effective.

MARTIN: I understand another idea that came up at the summit was something called baby bonds. That's an idea to address the racial wealth cap. That's something you've talked about on this program, previously. Now, that would involve something like a trust fund to American children born into poverty, and these children would have access to the funds once they turn 18 for specific uses like higher education or buying a home, for example. What does that do to address the current situation, however?

Mr. DARITY: Well, I think it does something that's more of a long-term solution for the current situation, in terms of the insecurities that people are confronted with when the economy goes into a downturn - the possibility that they'll lose their home, the possibility that their joblessness will wreak all types of havoc on the well-being of their families.

Individuals with wealth, with net worth, have the capacity to, in effect, establish some sort of personal insurance program for themselves in light of emergencies of the type that families are facing in the midst of this crisis. And so we're thinking that if we could provide every child that's born into the United States with some adequate foundation in terms of personal wealth, it would create some long-term security that would create a cushion in the event of the types of emergencies that families are facing right now.

MARTIN: And you talked about a number of other issues, like for example education and a long-term achievement gap and disparities in resources in different types of schools, which we don't have time to get into now. But just briefly, before I let you go, I don't know whether this is -you can consider this beyond the scope of the conference, but did you address the political realities of any of these proposals that you all came up with?

I mean, for example, you didn't address your policies prescriptions specifically toward African-Americans, you addressed them toward people who are poor, but do you think that there is a political will to address problems that affect one group more than others?

Mr. DARITY: I think that in this particular climate that we're in, there is a reluctance to design race-targeted or race-specific proposals. But I don't think that we spent a lot of time dwelling on that at this conference, because virtually all the proposals that we came up with were proposals that would be applicable to all Americans and not necessarily Americans who are poor.

I mean, the job guarantee would apply to all Americans, regardless of their current income or social status. The types of proposals that we were concerned about with respect to educational reform, health insurance, would apply to all Americans. So we didn't focus on that because�

MARTIN: Okay.

Mr. DARITY: Yeah.

MARTIN: We have to let you go for now.

Mr. DARITY: The ideas - yeah, okay.

MARTIN: All right, professor, we'll have you back again to talk more about this. Professor William Darity was one of the organizers of the African-American economic summit. He was kind enough to join us today from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where he is a professor. Professor Darity, thank you so much for joining us.

Mr. DARITY: Thank you, Michel.

MARTIN: Coming up, R&B singer Monica stages a comeback, captured in a new reality show, "Still Standing." She talks about life, work and her kids.

Ms. MONICA (Singer): I explain to everybody around me, from the television show when we went in, I said it when I went in to work on my deal for my new album: My kids come first.

MARTIN: It's a special moms' conversation, and it's just ahead on TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Michel Martin.

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