Susan Williams, M.D. at Freedom Socialist Party:
On average, for every dollar a white household has, a Black family has a nickel.
The economic crisis that began four years ago eroded the quality of life for almost everyone in this country. Yet whether talking about jobs, homes or healthcare, the most devastating blows strike those with the least. For people of color, it’s a full-blown depression.
The real jobless “recovery.” An acquaintance, let’s call him Alvaro, age 52, arrived from Mexico 11 years ago. Living in New York City, he did construction work, but always “off the books, because I have no papers; no union, no insurance.” Laid off in 2007, he never found another job, and now — with deteriorating health — has given up trying.
He’s not alone. Information released in August showed immigrants hardest hit by the slump in construction. Employment of foreign-born men dropped by nearly a third from 2007 to 2010, compared with “only” 21.6 percent of men born here. Immigrants who do have work are in lower-end jobs. While others got a modest gain in wages, theirs fell. Not only livelihoods, but lives are more and more threatened by vicious legislation from Arizona to Florida scapegoating those who were among the first victims of the economic crisis.
Not that being “legal,” even U.S.-born, is protection. Latinos and Latinas were slammed; over 600,000 jobs vanished for them. Blacks lost more jobs than they had gained in the prior decade.
In August, 8.0 percent of white men were unemployed, but 17.3 percent of Black men were. For Black youth it was an appalling 47.2 percent!
Many who have jobs are underemployed, with no benefits. People of color go longer before finding work and are less likely to get unemployment compensation. Nearly one-third of unemployed African Americans in New York City have been jobless for more than three years; over one-third more have been for over a year.
The employment gap is even wider for Native Americans. Only 44 percent held jobs in the northern plains states last year, despite the fact that rates for whites there are better than the national average. Alaskan Natives are in similar straits.
For all people of color, the racial job gap is widening. Ten years ago, as the country recovered from the last recession, 64.9 percent of adult white men were employed compared to 60.5 percent of Blacks. Now the number of whites with jobs is higher at 68.8 percent, but Black men have fallen to only 57 percent.
The employment divide is going to get worse, because Blacks and Latinos are more likely to work in the sector most under attack — public service jobs. One in five African Americans works for the government.
Women and elders suffer. Early on, commentators underscored the relatively heavier toll on men of color, with the creation of new jobs growing more slowly than the need. But in the past two years, the total jobs for Black women have actually fallen. Looking ahead, their jobs as teachers and caregivers are high on the hit list. Black and Latina women were also targeted for sub-prime mortgages, the credit rip-off that triggered the economic crash. As people lost their jobs, Black families (slightly more than half with a single mom), have been far more likely to lose homes.
Most elders have gotten poorer. More than three-quarters of older Latinos, and 69 percent of African Americans, are unable to pay for basic needs — rent, food, medicine, and transportation — compared with a lower, but still outrageous, 44 percent of whites.
A racial chasm. The widening racial divide is revealed most starkly by figures for household worth: the value of belongings (home, car, savings, stocks) minus debts. Here the combined impacts of perpetually lower employment, lower wages, and more costly credit don’t just add, they multiply.
Census Bureau data comparing 2005 with 2009 showed all groups hurt by the crisis. However, white households started out ahead, with median assets of $134,992 falling to $113,149. This 16 percent drop is bad enough. But compare it to African American families, who were at only $12,124 and fell to $5,677 (53 percent), or Latinos, who dropped from $18,539 to $6,235 (a whopping 66 percent).
Asian Americans, the so-called “model” minority, had the highest pre-crisis holdings: $168,103. No more. They lost a quarter million jobs, and household worth fell by 54 percent, to $78,066.
Headlines across the country blasted news of this “lost wealth,” the largest drop since the Census Bureau began collecting this information. Let’s get real. The assets of working people of all races weren’t “lost” — they were stolen.
Robbing the poor to give to the rich. During these years, the ultra-rich — 74 people whose average income started at $91.2 million — jumped more than five times to an unspeakably obscene $518.8 million. In fact, the minuscule fraction of the wealthiest within each racial group got richer, while millions sank.
Workers are poorer, but big corporations are making record profits and paying their CEOs to cut wages, lay off workers and dodge taxes. On Aug. 31, the Washington Post revealed that 25 of the highest-paid CEOs got more in salary than their companies, including Verizon and Boeing, paid in taxes.
The U.S. was built on stolen Native American land and genocide, stolen lives of Black slaves, and stolen labor of immigrants of many colors. The devastation of communities of color in the last four years shows that the idea of today’s U.S. as a “post-racial” society is a delusion.
True to their heritage, Wall Street bosses turned their crisis into the biggest transfer of riches from working people to the ruling class the world has ever seen. They used intensified racist exploitation and outright thievery to do it. As their castles in sand continue to crumble, they’ll keep on doing it — until working people unite across color lines to stop them.
Susan Williams, M.D., can be contacted at [email protected].