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MAKING CONTACT

Transcript: #31-98 Joblessness in the Inner-City
August 5, 1998

Program description at http://www.radioproject.org/archive/1998/9831.html

Phillip Babich: Welcome to Making Contact an international radio program seeking to create connections between people, vital ideas and important information. This week on Making Contact:-

William Julius Wilson: Too often as reflected in the current public policy debates on welfare reform, the discussion of behavior and social responsibility is devoid of any mention of the structural underpinnings of poverty and welfare.

Phillip Babich: According to William Julius Wilson poverty in U.S. cities is substantially different than it was 50 years ago. Back then he says, "People were poor but they were working." Today the jobless rate in some parts of urban centers is staggering. On this program you will hear about what happens when work disappears. I'm Phillip Babich your host this week on Making Contact.

In 1945 most of the poor urban Blacks in the United States held jobs. According to William Julius Wilson, a professor of social policy in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Wilson says that changes in the economy, cuts in social spending, urban flight, racism, and other factors have lead to a sharp decline in employment among inner city African Americans. In his 1996 book, "When Work Disappears, the World of the New Urban Poor," he argues that this downward trend has been largely responsible for many of the social ills that plague some family’s of color. Wilson, a leading African American scholar and past president of the American Sociological Association, spoke in Berkeley, California in September of that year. William Julius Wilson.

William Julius Wilson: The disappearance of work has had devastating consequences not only for individuals, families and neighborhoods, but for the social life of the city at large as well. Inner city joblessness is a severe problem that is often overlooked or obscured when the focus is mainly on poverty and its consequences because despite the increases and the concentration of poverty since 1970, inner cities have always featured high levels of poverty, but the current levels of inner city joblessness are unprecedented.

The consequences of high neighborhood joblessness are more devastating than those of high neighborhood poverty. A neighborhood in which people are poor but employed is much different from a neighborhood in which people are poor and jobless. Many of today's problems in the inner city ghetto neighborhoods: crime, family dissolution, welfare, low levels of social organization and so on, are fundamentally a consequence of the disappearance of work. In my new book, "When Work Disappears" I argue that the disappearance of work and the consequences of that disappearance for both social and cultural life are the central problems in the inner city ghetto.

To acknowledge that the ghetto still includes working people, and that nearly all ghetto residents whether employed or not support the norms of the work ethic should not lead one to overlook or to be unaware that a majority of adults in many inner city neighborhoods are jobless at any given point in time.

Too often as reflected in the current public policy debates on welfare reform, the discussion of behavior and social responsibility is devoid of any mention of the structural underpinnings of poverty and welfare. The focus is mainly on the shortcomings of individuals and families and not on the structural and social changes in the society at large that have made life so miserable for many inner city ghetto residents or that have produced certain unique responses and behavior patterns over time.

The inner city ghetto was not always plagued with low levels of employment and related problems. In the 1950s employment rates were high. People were poor but they were still working. Ghetto neighborhoods were as highly segregated as they are now, but people were working.

For example, in 1950 a substantial majority of adults held jobs in a typical week in the three neighborhoods that represent the historic core of the Black belt in Chicago: Douglas, Grand Boulevard and Washington Park. But by 1990 only four in ten in Douglas worked in a typical week, one in three in Washington Park and only one in four in Grand Boulevard.

In 1950 69% of all males 14 and over who lived in these neighborhoods worked in a typical week. And in 1960 64% of this group were so employed. However, by 1990 only 37% of all males 16 and over held jobs in a typical week in these three neighborhoods. That's an incredible drop from almost 70% in 1950 to 37% in 1990.

What accounts for the growing proportion of jobless adults and a corresponding increase in problems of social organization in inner city communities such as Douglas, Grand Boulevard and Washington Park?

To answer this question one has to account for the ways in which racial segregation interacts with other changes in society to produce the recent escalating rates of joblessness and several factors stand out that I can only outline.

The disappearance of work in many inner city neighborhoods is in part related to the nationwide decline in the fortunes of low skills workers. Fundamental structural changes in the new global economy including changes in the distribution and location of jobs and in the level of education required to obtain employment resulted in the simultaneous occurrence of increasing joblessness and decline in real wages for low skilled workers.

The decline of the mass production system. The decreasing availability of lower skilled blue collar jobs and the growing importance of training and education in the higher growth industries adversely affected the employment rates and earnings of low skilled Black workers, many of whom are concentrated in inner city ghettos.

The growing suburbanization of jobs has aggravated the employment woes of poor inner city workers. Most ghetto residents cannot afford an automobile and therefore have to rely on public transit systems that make the connection between inner city neighborhoods and suburban job locations difficult and time consuming.

Changes in the class, racial and demographic composition of inner city neighborhoods contributed to the high percentage of jobless adults. Because of the steady out migration of more advantaged families, the proportion of non-poor families and prime age working adults has decreased sharply in the typical inner city ghetto since 1970.

Today ghetto joblessness is more strongly associated with poverty than it was in previous years. In the face of increasing and prolonged joblessness, the declining proportion of non-poor families and the over all depopulation, make it more difficult to sustain basis neighborhood institutions or to achieve adequate levels of social control.

The declining presence of working and middle class Blacks also deprives ghetto neighborhoods of key resources including structural resources such as residences with income to sustain neighborhood services and cultural resources such as conventional role models for neighborhood children.

The economic marginality of the ghetto poor is cruelly reinforced therefore by conditions in the neighborhoods in which they live.

Finally, in addition to changes in the economy and in the class and racial composition of inner city ghetto neighborhoods, certain government programs and policies contributed over the last 50 years to the evolution of jobless ghettos.

Prominent among these are the early actions of the FHA in withholding mortgage capital from inner city neighborhoods. The manipulation of market incentives that trap Blacks in the inner cities and lured middle class Whites to the suburbs. The construction of massive federal housing projects in inner city neighborhoods. And since 1980 the New Federalism which through its insistence on localized responses to social problems resulted in drastic cuts in spending on basic urban programs just when the problems of social dislocation in jobless neighborhoods have escalated the city has fewer resources to address them.

Now, it is within this context that the public policy discussion on welfare reform and family values should be couched. It ought to be emphasized that as employment prospects recede the foundation for stable relationships becomes weaker over time. More permanent relationships such as marriage give way to temporary liaisons that result in broken unions, out of wedlock pregnancies and births and to a lesser extent separation and divorce.

The changing norms concerning marriage in the larger society reinforce the movement toward temporary liaisons in the inner city and therefore economic considerations and marital decisions take on an even greater weight. The evolving cultural patterns as seen in the sharing of negative outlooks toward marriage and toward relationships between males and females in the inner city, outlooks that have developed in and influenced by an environment plagued by persistent joblessness.

This combination of factors has increased out of wedlock births, weakened the family structure, expanded the welfare rolls, and as a result caused poor inner city Blacks to be even more disconnected from the job market and discouraged about their roll in the labor force.

It should also be emphasized that the complex interaction between social constraints and cultural attitudes and behavior over time has not only weakened the inner city Black family structure, it has also reduced the family's effectiveness in socializing children and preparing them for future participation in society.

Weak families are less effective in preparing youngsters for the labor market. And this is even more true in neighborhoods where family management, that is, the steps taken by parents to supervise and control the behavior of their children is undermined rather than reinforced by neighborhood influences.

All of those of you concerned about family values, listen up. A youngster who grows up in a family with a steady breadwinner and in a neighborhood in which most of the adults are employed will tend to develop some of the discipline habits associated with stable or steady employment. Habits that are reflected in the behavior of his or her parents and of other neighborhood adults.

These might include attachment to a routine, a recognition of the hierarchy found in most work situations. A sense of personal efficacy obtained through the routine management of financial affairs. Endorsement of a system of personal material rewards associated with dependability and responsibility and so on. Accordingly, when this youngster enters the labor market, he or she has a distinct advantage over the youngsters who grow up in households without a steady breadwinner and in neighborhoods that are not organized around work. In other words, a milieu in which one is more exposed to the less disciplined habits associated with causal or infrequent work.

You see work is not simply a way to make a living and support ones family. It also constitutes a framework for daily behavior and patterns of interaction because it imposes disciplines and regularities.

Moreover, the research that we have conducted in Chicago's ghetto neighborhoods reveal that the residents of high jobless neighborhoods share a feeling of little informal social control of the children in their environment.

A primary reason is the absence of a strong organizational capacity or an institutional resource base that would provide an extra layer of social organization in their neighborhoods. It is easier for parents to control the behavior of the children in their neighborhoods when there exists a strong institutional resource base when the links between community institutions such as churches and schools and political organizations, and businesses and civic clubs are strong. The higher the density and stability of formal organizations the less illicit activity such as drug trafficking and crime and prostitution and the formation of gangs can take root in the neighborhood.

A weak institutional base is what distinguishes high inner city neighborhoods from stable middle class and working class areas. And therefore it is much more difficult to be a parent in such environment than those of you in middle class or working class stable areas.

You talk about family values? I'd like to see how many of you could manage living in those environments and live up to the expectations of society.

Phillip Babich: William Julius Wilson, a professor of social policy at Harvard University speaking about his book, "When Work Disappears, The World of the New Urban Poor." We'll have more of his speech in a few moments.

Shereen Meraji: You're listening to Making Contact, a production of the National Radio Project. This program can now be heard on 130 stations in the United States, Canada, Haiti, South Africa, and around the world on Radio for Peace International short-wave. If you want more information about the subject of this week's program, or you would like to learn how you can get involved with Making Contact, please give us a call. It's toll free. 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes and transcript orders. That's 800-529-5736. We also welcome comments and suggestions for future programs.

Phillip Babich: In September 1996, William Julius Wilson spoke about his book "When Work Disappears," which analyzes declining employment among urban Blacks, as part of his research Wilson closely looked at inner city communities in the greater Chicago area. Part of his studies included interviews with employers about their attitudes toward hiring poor African Americans.

William Julius Wilson: One of the three studies that provided the empirical foundation for "When Work Disappears," the urban poverty and family life study, included a representative sample of employers in the greater Chicago area. Employers who provided entry level jobs. An overwhelming majority of these employers both White and Black expressed negative views about inner city workers and many stated that they were reluctant to hire them.

For example, a suburban employer of an electrical services firm offered this unique explanation of why he would not hire inner city ghetto residents, and I quote: "If you are in a white neighborhood and you have a manufacturing firm and a ghetto person comes there to apply. It doesn't make any difference what color his skin is. If you know that's where he's from, you know several things. One is that if you give him a job there he's going to be unbelievably pressured to give information to his peer group in the ghetto. About the security system, the comings and goings of what's of value there that we could rip off. He's not a crook, he want's no part of it, but he lives in an area where he may be physically or in danger of his life if he doesn't provide the information to the people that live around him. As a manager I know that. And I'm not going to hire him because of that. I'm not discriminating against him because he's Black, I'm discriminating against him because he has a problem that he's going to bring to me."

The president of an inner city manufacturing firm expressed a different concern about employing residents from certain inner city neighborhoods: "If somebody gave me their address of Cabrini Green (which by the way is a big housing project in Chicago) I might unavoidably have some concerns. Interviewer: What would your concerns be? Employer: That the poor guy probably would be frequently unable to get to work and that his, I probably would watch him more carefully even if it wasn't fair than I would with somebody else. I know what I should do though is recognize that here is a guy that is trying to get out of his situation and probably will work harder than somebody else who's already out there and he might be the best one around here. But I think that I would have to struggle accepting that premise at the beginning."

Now in addition to the qualms about the neighborhood milieu of inner city residents, the employers frequently mentions concerns about applicants' language skills and educational training. A blue collar employer made the following observation: "My guess is that the problem is related to the level of education. I think even for your minimal jobs. For some of those jobs, you know, you have to have a little bit of math background. For example in some of our machine operations. If you're handicapped by not having some of the basic skills you need, if you're hired and you can't make it on the job because you don't even have the basic skills, that's part of the problem."

Another respondent defended his method of screening out most job applicants on the telephone on the basis of their use of "grammar and English."

"I have every right to say that that's a requirement for this job. I don't care if you're pink, black, green, yellow or orange. I demand someone who speaks well. You want to tell me that I'm a bigot. Fine. Call me a bigot. I know Blacks who don't even know they're Black. So do you."

Now how should we interpret the negative attitudes and actions of employers? To what extent do they represent an aversion to inner city Blacks per se and to what degree do they reflect judgments based on the job related skills and training of inner city Blacks in a changing labor market?

I should point out that the statements made by the African American employers concerning the qualifications of inner city Black workers do not differ significantly from those of the White employers. Where as 74% of all the White employers who responded to the open ended questions expressed negative views of the job related traits of inner city Blacks, 80% of the Black employers did so as well. The difference between the Black employers and the White employers is that the Black employers are a little more sophisticated in explaining the negative traits of the inner city workers. They knew more about the nefarious and deleterious effects of the environment.

So this raises a question about the meaning and significance of race in certain situations. In other words, how race intersects with other factors. Now key hypothesis in this connection is that given the recent shifts in the economy, employers looking for workers with a broad range of abilities, hard skills, literacy, numeracy, basic mechanic ability and other testable attributes, and "soft skills": Personality, suitable to the work environment, Good grooming, Group oriented work behaviors and so on.

Now while hard skills are the product of education and training benefits that are apparently in short supply in inner-city schools, soft skills are strongly tied to culture and therefore shaped by the harsh environment of the inner city ghetto. For example a mother, what we learn in our research, a mother will teach her children not to make eye to eye contact with people in the inner city. You don't do that. You can get shot doing that. You dis people that way. Or you develop a very, very tough demeanor when you are interacting with people in these troubled neighborhoods for survival. Now you take those traits to middle class society where you're interacting with middle class Blacks and Whites? And they get turned off. They can't understand. "What's wrong with these people." You see. While the employer is concerned about if people have to interact with the consumer, the employer is concerned about whether or not they have the proper soft skills as well as the hard skills to be effective employees.

So if employers are indeed reacting to the differences in skills between Black and White applicants, it becomes increasingly difficult to discuss the motives of employers. Are they rejecting inner city Black applicants out of overt racial discrimination or on the basis of qualification. For some it's overt racial discrimination. For others it's qualification. It's oversimplification to simply say it's all racism. If you do that you don't come to grips with the very, very complex set of problems including the way in which these kids are crippled in inner city schools, and in an environment which makes it very, very difficult for them to develop the skills that they need to compete effectively in the larger society.

Nonetheless, many of the selective recruitment practices do represent what economist call statistical discrimination. Employers make assumptions about the inner city Black workers in general, and reach decisions based on those assumptions because they've not had a chance to review systematically the qualifications of an individual applicant. So you see, whether or not someone comes from a certain area, if a person comes from an area that you associate with all these ills, then you won't bother to hire that person and you won't take the time to check that person's background to see whether he or she is capable of doing the job.

The net effect is that many Black inner city applicants are never given the chance to prove their qualifications on an individual level because they are systematically screened out by the selective recruitment practices or process.

Statistical discrimination also, although representing elements of class bias against poor workers in the inner city, is clearly a matter of race. The selective recruitment patterns effectively screen out far more Black workers from the inner city than Hispanic or White workers from the same types of backgrounds. But race is also a factor even in those decisions to deny employment to inner city Black workers on the basis of objective and thorough evaluations of their qualifications. The hard and soft skills among inner city Blacks that do not match the current needs of the labor market are products of racially segregated communities, communities that have historically featured widespread social constraints and restricted opportunities.

Let me conclude my presentation with some brief comments about the public policy challenges given the problems I have described.

I argue in "When Work Disappears" that programs proposed to improve employment opportunities should be aimed at broad segments of the U.S. population, not just inner city workers. Why? After all I have said, why would I emphasize that point? Mainly because it would provide the needed solid political base of support in the new highly integrated global economy and increasing number of Americans across racial, ethnic and income groups, are experiencing declining real incomes, increasing job displacement and growing economic insecurity. The unprecedented level of inner city joblessness represents one, but an important aspect of a broader economic dislocation that cut across racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Accordingly, when promoting economic and social reforms, it hardly seems politically wise to focus mainly or only on the most disadvantaged groups while ignoring other segments of the population who have also been adversely affected by global economic changes. So with this thought in mind, in "When Work Disappears" I develop both long term and short term solutions.

The long term solutions which includes development of a system of national performance standards in public schools, and also enables schools to reach these standards, family policies to reinforce the learning environment system in the school, such as preschool, child support and family leave programs. We need a national system of school to work transition.

Right now employers for the most part will not hire high school graduates immediately out of high school. If a high school graduate is not going on to college, the chances that he or she will get a job are pretty slim. Especially if they come from poor areas. Because employers will wait six years or so before they hire any high school graduate.

So what are these kids doing in the meantime? They are left to sink or swim, you see. And then I talk about ways in which we could promote city and suburban integration and cooperation. The city suburban divide has contributed to the growing joblessness in the inner city neighborhood. It has made it difficult for cities to develop some of the resources that they need in the face of the drastic cut in federal support.

I talk about short term solutions which range from the development of job information and placement centers and subsidized car pools in the ghetto to the creation of neo-WPA style jobs which are more relevant to low income Americans but nonetheless provide the kind of opportunity enhancing programs that Americans of all racial and class background tend to support. I want to emphasize that these would be temporary jobs because we would eventually want to move people into jobs in the private sector when they become available.

But I feel the public sector jobs are absolutely necessary if we are to immediately address the jobs problem in the inner city and prevent a real catastrophe when the welfare mothers who reach the time limit, flood a pool already filled with jobless workers. Thank you very much.

Phillip Babich: William Julius Wilson.

That's it for this edition of Making Contact - a look at urban joblessness. Thanks for listening. And special thanks this week to Sue Supriano who recorded Wilson's speech at Cody's Books in Berkeley, California. Shereen Meraji and Nora Haldeman provided production assistance. I'm Phillip Babich.

If you want more information about the subject of this week's program, call the National Radio Project at 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes and transcripts or if you'd like to make a comment or a suggestion for future programs.

That's 800-529-5736. Making Contact is an independent production funded by individual contributors. We're committed to providing a forum for voices and opinions not often heard in the mass media. Our national producer is David Barsamian. Phillip Babich is our managing producer. Our senior advisor is Norman Solomon. Peggy Law is our executive director. Our theme music is by the Charlie Hunter Trio. For everyone at Making Contact, thanks for listening.