Where bad times hit hardest

July 15, 2009

THE UNEMPLOYMENT GAP between black men and other men in the United States has long exemplified the dearth of economic options facing some communities. The recession has expanded that gap to an alarming degree. In an astonishing new analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, Northeastern University labor economics researcher Andrew Sum found that black men with college degrees have lost jobs dramatically faster in the recession than other college-educated Americans.

Nationwide, 75 percent of black men with at least a bachelor’s degree are employed full time - down from 84 percent two years ago. The trend was worse in the Northeast, where full-time employment among college-educated black men plummeted from 84 percent to 70 percent.

In 2007, college-educated black men in New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were employed at about the same rate as white men. Today this group of black men is 9 percentage points behind. Total black and Hispanic job losses in Massachusetts and Connecticut were more than double the 6.8 percent losses for white men. As white male unemployment hit a national high of 9.3 percent this year, it hit 17.2 percent for black men.

“Black men have just gotten clobbered, just gotten crushed,’’ said Sum, who said professional black men may be more concentrated in more vulnerable financial services and sales jobs and lower-level management positions. “When college-educated black men are suffering double-digit job losses, when the job losses of everyone else with college degrees, including women, are pretty close to zero, it tells you that somehow, even college-educated black men are the first fired.’’

When even education is no defense against unemployment, it’s all the more important that policies meant to spur a recovery reach the hardest-hit segments of the population. That may not happen if, for instance, the cities where many African-Americans live continue to be shortchanged in favor of rural districts for transportation projects funded by the stimulus bill.

The Patrick administration, which is getting an earful from community groups about racial disparities in job losses, hopes that 15.3 percent of construction contract jobs will go to workers of color. The state also has applied for federal grants to bolster its 37 career centers. The latest data show that narrowing the gaps will take much more. Robb Smith, the state’s labor and workforce director of policy and planning, said, “We haven’t had a national urban policy since the 1960s.’’ A widening unemployment gap makes this an ideal time to formulate one.