Nation’s Economic Woes Hit Black Workers Hardest

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/02/26/nations-economic-woes-hit-black-workers-hardest/

by James Parks, Feb 26, 2008

All workers have suffered in the seven years that President Bush has been in office. But black workers, even those in unions, have been hit hardest.

African American incomes are dropping at the same time fewer African Americans belong to unions. The percentage of African Americans who either are members of or represented by unions fell by half from 31.7 percent of all black workers in 1983 to 15.7 percent last year, according to a new report by the Center for Economic Policy and Research. Still, several studies have shown African Americans are more likely to join unions than other workers.

The report, The Decline in African-American Representation in Unions and Manufacturing, 1979–2007, shows much of the decline is due to the loss of manufacturing jobs. Between 1979 and 2006, the share of all African American workers who worked in manufacturing declined from 23.9 percent to 9.8 percent, a drop of nearly 60 percent. Manufacturing jobs, especially good-paying union jobs in the auto industry, played a big role in creating the black middle class.


The share of African American manufacturing workers has declined by nearly 60 percent in the past 30 years.

This double whammy of fewer manufacturing jobs and lower union membership is threatening to erase the economic gains blacks made in the 1990s. The Economic Policy Institute reports African American income relative to whites has dropped in the past eight years. For example, in 1995, the median black family earned 60.9 percent of the median white family. By 2000, the ratio had climbed to a record high of 63.5 percent. But by 2005, it had dropped to 60.2 percent of the median white household.

That shift in income may be in large part to the huge number of black workers who have lost union jobs. According to a recent study, a whopping 55 percent of union jobs lost in 2004 were held by black workers. More stunningly, African American women accounted for 70 percent of the union jobs lost by women in 2004.

But median family income and union jobs do not tell the entire story. The 2001 recession and weak recovery hurt the poorest African Americans the most. In 1995, the poorest fifth of black families only earned, on average, 43 percent of what the poorest fifth of white families earned. The ratio increased to 49.9 percent in 2000. By 2005, it had fallen back to 43 percent.

FULL story at link.