Hearing: Joint Economic Committee-Addressing the Problem of African-American Male Unemployment

Statement

Joint Economic Committee Hearing on Addressing the Problem of African-
American Male Unemployment

Opening Statement

Sen. Charles Schumer
I would like to welcome my fellow Members, our witnesses and guests here today for our
first Joint Economic Committee hearing on employment in the 110th Congress. The Joint
Economic Committee, which was created by the Employment Act of 1946, has a tradition
of holding hearings on the employment situation. Going forward, we hope to use the
timing of the monthly releases of employment data as an opportunity to investigate
problematic trends lurking behind the headline numbers that warrant national action.
Today, our focus will be on the growing crisis of joblessness for young African American
men.
The crisis is profound, persistent and perplexing. Both across the country and particularly
in my home state of New York, far too many black men are facing difficulty finding and
keeping work. The numbers are staggering and getting worse, particularly for young
black men.
Consider these statistics:
In 1999, 65% of black male high school dropouts in their 20's were jobless - in other
words not looking or unable to find work - and by 2004, the share had grown to 72%
jobless. 72% jobless! This compares to 29% of white and 19% of Hispanic dropouts.
In the inner cities, more than half of all black men do not finish high school. Even when
you consider high school graduates, half of black men in their 20's were jobless in 2004.
To make matters worse, incarceration of young black men is at historic highs. A black
man with only a high school diploma has a 30 percent chance of having served time in
prison by the time he turns thirty. Without a high school diploma, his likelihood of
having been incarcerated jumps to 60 percent. In fact, a black male in his late twenties
without a high school diploma is more likely to be in jail than to be working.
These numbers take your breath away. These numbers should cause national alarm and
demand a national solution.
One reason this crisis is perplexing is because it is playing out against a backdrop of
relative economic success and unprecedented historical advances for many sectors of our
nation's African American population.
Obviously we know the stories of highly successful black men and women -- Richard
Parsons, the head of Time Warner, Stan O'Neal, the head of Merrill Lynch, Oprah
Winfrey, Senator Barack Obama, Condi Rice and countless others. And more importantly
there are burgeoning black middle class communities throughout the country and lower
income black women who have made impressive gains in terms of work force
participation in just the last few years.
So, we can lull ourselves into thinking things are all right. But we have to dig down into
the numbers a little more to see how mistaken that belief is when it comes to black males
with less than a college education. And that is what we hope this hearing will accomplish
today - to give us a better handle on this problem, and help us craft the right policy
solutions to address it.
There are many circumstances that led us to this point, and many of them are familiar
culprits. Failing schools, dysfunctional families, high incarceration rates, overt and subtle
racism, and the decimation of manufacturing jobs that typically afforded opportunities to
black men in the labor market.
These political, cultural, economic and personal elements are high hurdles that are
tripping up far too many young black men. And while this is a sensitive subject, there is
also a subculture of the street that provides easy money and allows some to eschew
personal responsibility. But we can't sit passively by and let that subculture claim another
generation of young men.
A long-time friend and community leader in Brooklyn, the Reverend Johnny Ray
Youngblood said it best: "Government has a moral responsibility to compete against, and
win against, subcultures that are immoral, illegal and really inhuman."
Reverend Youngblood is 100% right. But this much is certain: on the Federal level, there
has been no comprehensive public policy response to this situation. We have left the
problems of black men largely to the market, which is ignoring if not exacerbating the
problem.
My goal today is twofold: first, we must shine a bright spotlight on a problem that - to my
thinking - has received scant attention, inadequate resources, intermittent focus and poor
coordination at the federal level.
Second, I want to explore legislation, policy and programs that will have a real impact in
addressing this crisis. This committee's challenge today, and in the weeks and months
ahead, will be to put forward a series of policy recommendations aimed at addressing the
crisis of young black male unemployment. We will start by looking today at promising
reform experiments at the state level - such as in my home state of New York - and see
what we can and should emulate on the federal level.
At the state level, there has been some good news. After much trial and error, we now
have several successful job training and placement models THAT DO WORK. In a few
moments, we'll hear from Robert Carmona of STRIVE whose job-training program has
been replicated with great success throughout the United States and around the world.
We'll also hear from Dr. Ronald Mincy who has helped design an Earned Income Tax
Credit initiative for non-custodial parents in New York State that will help draw
thousands of new workers into the labor force in the coming years.
Our task will be turning these local-grown programs, models and ideas, into national
policies that can help us meet this challenge head-on.
With that, I will turn to the Vice Chair, Ms. Maloney, to give her opening statement, and
give the other members a chance to provide statements before we proceed to the
introduction of our panelists.

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