Inner City Employment

Paper Summary:

The paper states that employment for African-Americans living in the inner city has long been a major problem. From the period of 1955 to 1965, black and white males worked in the labor force at equal rates, with blacks actually more likely to be working than whites. The paper states that in 1965, when the U.S. had its largest economic growth ever, the separation between the two groups began its employment separation and a 20-point gap had opened up between young blacks and young whites in the work force. The paper discusses the problem and concludes that, based on various sociologist's reports, money, alone, will not resolve this deep-seeded problem of the lack of inner city employment. The paper maintains that the solution has to be a multi-faceted approach with ongoing structural changes to the underlying issues.

From the Paper:

"Elijah Anderson, a renowned ethnographer of the inner city and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, relates in an interview that when he wrote his PhD dissertation for the University of Chicago in the 1970s, the responsibilities and opportunities for the young black inner city male were completely different than they are today. Working people were able to make a decent living by working hard, even if they didn't have any special skills or education. Things have greatly changed since then."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bartik, Timothy. Jobs for the Poor: Can Labor Demand Policies Help? New York and Kalamazoo: Russell Sage Foundation and W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2001.
• Chapple, Karen. Overcoming mismatch: beyond dispersal, mobility, and development strategies. Journal of the American Planning Association 72.3 (2006): 322-337.
• Kusmer, Kenneth L. The Urban Crisis as History Reviews in American History 25.4 (1997) 667-673
• Laskowski, Tara. "W.E.B. Lecture Shines Spotlight on Plight of Inner City Black Male. 15 February, 2006 Mason Gazette. 19 May, 2007. http://gazette.gmu.edu/articles/7890/
• Rubenstein, Ed. Right Data: welfare dependency and inner city jobs. National Review. 48.20 (1996), 16.

More papers on Inner City Employment:

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• Book Review # 29077 : "Native Son"

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