Barbara Scarborough can’t catch a break. First, she lost her production job at a contact lens manufacturer after Sept. 11.
“I had a 401(k) and benefits for the first time. That was a good job,” said the 41-year-old single mother on Chicago’s South Side.
Then she was laid off in March from a packaging house. And in July, after working only a month as a part-time telephone market researcher, earning far less than before, she was laid off again.
Scarborough had prospered during the 1990s economic boom, when blacks flooded the labor market. Many snagged steady hours, health insurance and retirement benefits, and were able to save money. The black jobless rate, as high as 14.7 percent in 1992, dropped to a 30-year low of 7 percent in April 2000.
But as quickly as blacks moved ahead they have fallen back. The black unemployment rate in July stood at 11.1 percent, higher than that for Hispanics (8.2 percent) and double the rate for whites (5.5 percent).
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Heavy job losses in manufacturing and services hit a disproportionate number of blacks, and private-sector cuts sent more college-educated blacks to the unemployment lines than ever before. Many were the last hired, the first fired.
Some have lost homes and their independence; others are fighting to keep what they’ve got. Job training is harder to come by, and so is transportation to jobs far from home. They struggle to provide for their children and are forced to put on hold plans to better themselves–such as returning to college or learning a new skill.
The result is widespread disillusionment among those who are “out there” again so soon after getting out from under.
“Some people feel like, `I’ve done everything I was asked to do.’ They were able to stop looking to their family and friends for support. They’re back in that situation again,” said Joan Archie, director of the Chicago Urban League’s employment counseling and training department.
Experts predict that as blacks compete for fewer jobs in a weak labor market where employers are prone to be more selective and biases come into play, joblessness among blacks could reach the crisis level again, especially in the inner city.
“If the recent economic boom could have been extended for several more years it would have significantly lowered the overall jobless rate in areas such as the inner-city ghetto, not only for low-skilled workers … but for those who have been outside the labor market for many years,” said William Julius Wilson (the name as published has been corrected in this text), a Harvard University social policy professor and author of “When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor.”
“Blacks feel frozen out of the work world,” said Eddie Read, a controversial community activist who shut down construction sites in black neighborhoods in the 1990s, demanding that the workforce reflect the community. “The overwhelming reason that blacks are not working is something that nobody wants to grapple with these days, and it’s racism.”
As a result of fruitless job searches, resentment is growing among some blacks toward immigrant workers, particularly Hispanics. There’s a perception that they are taking jobs once held by blacks.
“It seems Hispanics have more advantages,” said Abdul Azeem Muhammad, who was laid off in November as a software engineer for Motorola. “But I’m not knocking them. I’m just saying it’s rough on us. I think they’re willing to hire anybody but a black man.”
The black unemployment rate has historically been twice that of whites. Research shows that black males continue to be the least desired workers. Muhammad, with his shaved head and religious affiliation–he is a black Muslim–may be viewed suspiciously by some employers, despite his master’s degree in information systems and computer science and nine years of experience.
“Whether you have a GED or a college degree, [unemployment] is still higher if you’re black,” said Cornelius Henderson, 32, of the South Shore neighborhood, who was laid off last month as a call-center trainer for a non-profit.
Henderson, who has a liberal arts degree, earned $400 to $500 a day in the late ’90s training call-center managers as a private contractor. “I got tired of the peaks and valleys, so I got a full-time job. It was easier then.”
Now, the contract work has dried up, and Henderson has to look for work below his qualifications. He says he feels misled by “the system,” which espouses that if you work hard and get an education, you can be successful.
“This is not what was promised,” said Henderson.
Last week, Henderson visited the state-run One Stop employment office at 1515 W. 71st St. to inquire about unemployment benefits. He was denied because of incomplete paperwork. He is struck to see so many people like himself.
“I used to live a few blocks from this One Stop. I used to see brothers who weren’t my peers–meaning they didn’t have a college education–hanging out. Today, I see brothers like myself, around my age group, that are just out there.”
“A lot of the sectors that have been hard hit have been the higher-wage jobs,” said Mary Daly, a senior research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank who co-wrote the study “Black-White Wage Inequality in the 1990s: A Decade of Progress.” “Lower-skilled unemployment rate didn’t jump as much as it did for higher-wage jobs,” Daly said.
Still, the lower-skilled, undereducated blacks will have the most difficulty recovering.
Consider Monica Thompson, 44, who was laid off in March from Bank One’s loan processing department.
She doesn’t have a college degree, but has more than 10 years of on-the-job experience. She would like another office job, but today’s employers are reluctant to hire people who need training, and the federal government has cut job-training programs. Recently she lost an opportunity because she failed the typing test.
“I understand companies have certain requirements, but you don’t have to have a college degree to learn,” said Thompson, a divorced mother of a 20-year-old senior at Fisk University in Nashville.
Her son took a full-time job to help out. “By him working I didn’t have to worry about tuition and rent,” she said. “That was truly a blessing.”
Some have fallen back to where they started. After staying off welfare for 10 years, Scarborough, who has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, is back on food stamps. She feels lucky to qualify for them because the “work first” philosophy of welfare reform has made it harder for displaced workers to obtain public assistance.
Yet Scarborough lost her house in early 2002 and now with a roommate rents a home for her and her two daughters, ages 10 and 12. The girls’ father helps out, but Scarborough’s savings are drying up.
“I’m worried. It’s constantly on my mind,” she said. “Constantly.”
The job search for blacks typically lasts longer than for other minorities or whites.
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Melynda Burch, for instance, was laid off more than a year ago as a trade clerk at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. She got the news while on medical leave for her troubled pregnancy.
She believes she would have a job if she had a car. “Temp agencies want to send me to Mundelein,” said Burch, 28. “I have to find something in the city.”
Burch suffers from feelings of inadequacy. Although she has two years of college under her belt, she does not have a degree and worries that is yet another strike against her in today’s job market.
“Sometimes, I feel I don’t have enough experience. Or maybe it’s because I’m a woman, or because I’m an African-American. I don’t know. I try to go on an interview with a positive attitude,” she said.
Yet it’s getting harder for Burch to stay positive.
In the past year, she had to give up her apartment and move in with her boyfriend, the father of her 1-year-old daughter, and his family. That has meant being separated from her 7-year-old son, who lives with his father.
She does hair on the side for extra money. Her pride keeps her from seeking public assistance.
“Honestly, I can’t go on any longer,” she said, noting that her son’s birthday is next month. “If I don’t get a job, I’m going to have to borrow money to buy him something.”
Her spirits were lifted temporarily last week when she and her little girl moved into a house with a woman looking to split the rent. She keeps telling herself there is a reason why she hasn’t been hired. Meanwhile, the rejection letters keep coming.
“The Lord just has something bigger and better for me.”