although this study was conducted in the 1990s...nothing has changed today
The Labor Market Experience of Young African American Men from Low-Income Families in Wisconsin
by Harold M. Rose, Ronald S. Edari, Lois M. Quinn and John Pawasarat, Employment and Training Institute, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, November 1992
Introduction
America's promise to its young people has traditionally been jobs--decent paying employment which offers the possibility of a home, a car, and the comforts of middle class living for a family. Wisconsin, and particularly Milwaukee, with its healthy manufacturing economy historically served as a magnet for workers and provided a comfortable environment in which to raise children. However, 1990 U.S. Census figures for Milwaukee suggest that this promise of jobs for young people seriously eroded during the last two decades of manufacturing decline and economic restructuring. By 1990 only half of City of Milwaukee youth ages 16 through 19 years of age who were not in school were employed. According to the Census, 17 percent of male and female out-of-school teens were unemployed, and nearly a third were not working, nor were they actively seeking employment.
Disparities in employment status were notable by race, with white high school graduates much more likely to be employed than African American graduates. For high school dropouts the employment rate for African American youth (24.5 percent) was half that for whites (52.3 percent). For both populations the number of youth not employed at the time of the U.S. Census was disturbingly high.
The type of work and level of wages available to young job applicants is also changing dramatically, particularly for young men entering the labor force. With the decline in manufacturing industries and the bifurcation of service jobs into low-wage jobs for unskilled workers and high-wage jobs for professional and technically-trained employees, fewer young men found employment to support themselves, let alone to contribute to the support of others. While the labor force of the last two decades expanded to include an influx of baby boomers and female entrants, service jobs represented much of the job growth of the period. In the 1980s many service jobs "suburbanized" outward from the central city, and City of Milwaukee residents showed a declining share of metropolitan area jobs in the often higher paying jobs in construction; finance, insurance and real estate; and government.
Employment challenges for young African American men entering the labor force were compounded by intense racial housing segregation, particularly in Milwaukee where over 80 percent of the 79,700 African American children under age eighteen live in a 25-square mile area of the 1,400 square mile SMSA, and by persistent racial discrimination in the labor market. Furthermore, by 1990, according to the U.S. Census, Wisconsin had the second highest poverty rate for African American children in the nation. In 1990 over half (56 percent) of African American children in Wisconsin under age 18 were growing up in poverty.
This research study provides empirical data on the employment experience of young African American men who entered the Wisconsin labor force in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Its goal was to examine the early labor force experience of young men from poor families.
Absent data on Wisconsin families living in poverty, the research used state income maintenance system files to identify all young men whose families had any contact with the welfare system, that is, where someone in the household (not necessarily the young African American male) had applied for or received food stamps, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), or medical assistance at any time in 1987, 1988 or 1989. Using this broad net, a total of 7,456 Wisconsin young African American men and 5,863 Milwaukee male teens were identified.
In Milwaukee because of the large number of African American youth living in poverty, it is estimated that the study population includes over 85 percent of all African American males entering their early twenties and over 75 percent of African American male teenagers. The study population includes slightly less than half of African American youth from counties outside of Milwaukee. This report does not provide information on African American males from middle class families and should not be used to generalize about the total experience of young African American men.
To develop a data base of the employment activities of the study population, the Employment and Training Institute reviewed the quarterly employment records submitted by all covered employers in Wisconsin to the state Department of Industry, Labor and Human Relations. The researchers examined all 36,005 jobs held by males in the study population during a thirty-nine month period from January, 1988 through March, 1991. The research, financed by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with support from the Milwaukee Foundation, tracked actual earnings, length of employment and type of employer over time for youth entering the labor force and explored the extent to which wages earned allowed young men to assume financial support for themselves or a family.
Because the data bases used did not provide information on the number of young men leaving Wisconsin, unemployment rates for the population have been estimated conservatively to include only those men whose wage records provided evidence that they had remained in Wisconsin. 1,661 young men born from 1966 through 1970 showed no earnings during the 39 months reviewed. These men are not included in the calculation of unemployment figures since data was not available to determine which men had remained in Wisconsin as permanently unemployed persons and which men may have relocated to other states. Also, state employment files do not include unreported, informal or illegal employment.
Findings
Relatively low unemployment rates for Wisconsin mask deep and persistent pockets of unemployment among African American men from low income families. In Milwaukee the percentage of young African American workers who showed sustained unemployment for the entire three month period from January to March, 1990 was 41 percent, more than ten times the official Milwaukee area unemployment rate of 3.8 percent for March, 1990. When the U.S. Department of Labor's alternative measure for unemployment is calculated including discouraged workers plus one-half of the part-time labor force, the unemployment rate for young African American men in Milwaukee was estimated at 60 percent in First Quarter, 1990.
Unemployment rates for young African American men in other Wisconsin urban counties were even higher than those shown for Milwaukee. Unemployment rates remained at Depression levels throughout the study period.
The vast majority of African American men in their early twenties who were employed were relegated to marginal, low-wage jobs for the duration of the 39 month period studied with most of the jobs in retail trades and the service industries. In 1990 only 885 of the 8,421 jobs held by men in the study population paid a living wage, and only 386 jobs paid a family wage.
Jobs Held by African-American Men in Their Twenties:Milwaukee County
The largest sector employing young African American men was retail trade, which provided nearly 2,400 jobs in 1990. This included jobs in restaurants, bars, grocery stores, department stores and other retail outlets. Average annual wages paid in this sector ($2,023 in 1990) were third lowest -- after day labor and hotel, automotive and business services. Retail trade jobs showed very high turnover rates and a significant number of failed jobs. Only about a tenth of the retail trade jobs held in 1990 paid annual wages high enough to support an individual.
Many men in the study population sought out day labor jobs, but these jobs averaged only $570 a year in wages. Within the service sectors twice as many men held jobs in the lower- paying hotel, automotive and business services (averaging a total of only $1,697 annual wages) than in the health, legal, education and social services (averaging $3,084 a year).
Although manufacturing jobs comprised less than 15 percent of all jobs for young African American men, the manufacturing sector provided nearly half of the jobs (149 of 386 jobs) paying adequate wages to support a three-person family. Durable and non-durable manufacturing also showed the most jobs lasting year-round.
Three major sectors of the Milwaukee economy provided fewer than three percent each of jobs for young African American men: construction; city, county, state and federal government; and the financial, insurance and real estate sector. In spite of an unprecedented level of public capital improvement projects during the last decade in the Milwaukee metropolitan area, only 14 young men from the study population had jobs with construction firms in 1990 that lasted year-round. The city, county, state and federal governments combined provided year-round jobs in 1990 to fewer than ten men from the study population.
