Business

Black Graduates Face a Tough Job Market

Published

9 years ago

June 2, 2015

Oakland Post

College graduates facing tough job market (NNPA Photo by Freddie Allen)

By Freddie Allen
NNPA Senior Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – College graduates will enter a job market this year that is better than it has been in recent years, but they will still face a tough climb. That climb will be especially difficult for Black college graduates who will grapple with a jobless rate that is still in the double digits, according to a new report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a Washington, D.C.-based research and education group focused on low- and middle-income workers.

Alyssa Davis, a research fellow focused on the labor market, poverty and education; Will Kimball, a research assistant with EPI; and Elise Gould, director of health policy research co-authored the report for the Institute’s “Raising America’s Pay” research and public education initiative.

“Things are starting to look up for young grads, but we’re not quite where we want to be yet,” said Davis.

Even though, the unemployment rate for Black college graduates improved to 11.4 percent, it is still nearly three points higher than it was in 2007 (8.1 percent) before the Great Recession. The jobless rate for White college graduates has peaked at 9 percent in 2011, and the current unemployment rate at 5.8 percent is less than a percentage point from the 2007 rate of 5.1 percent.

“This suggests other factors may be in play, such as discrimination or unequal access to the informal professional networks that often lead to job opportunities,” stated the report.

Increasing college costs coupled with mountains of student loan debt may also make it harder for students to stay in school to earn advanced degrees.

“The cost of higher education has risen faster than typical family incomes, making it harder for families to pay for college,” stated the EPI report. “From the 1983–1984 enrollment year to the 2013–2014 enrollment year, the inflation adjusted cost of a four-year education, including tuition, fees, and room and board, increased 125.7 percent for private school and 129.0 percent for public school.”

Meanwhile, the median family income rose less than 17 percent over the same period.

Over the past decade (2004-2014), the number of borrowers has increased more than 90 percent and the average debt per borrower increased by 74 percent, according to the EPI report.

Those who can’t afford college are forced to compete in a weak labor market with older more experienced workers.

More than 23 percent of Black high school graduates fall into the gap between having a job and going to college, compared to 14.2 percent of their White peers.

“When you have a period of sustained economic weakness like this and you have these lower wages, and you have all of these people idle, it can affect their jobs opportunities and earnings for up to a decade into the future,” said Davis.

High school graduates also struggle to find work.

The unemployment rate for Black high school graduates rose to 42 percent in 2011 and is now roughly 30 percent and the jobless rate for White high school graduates is about 17 percent.

Researchers suggested that because the majority of workers aged 17-24 years-old have less than a college degree, including more than 90 percent of Black workers, policymakers need to focus on providing them with access to good jobs and stable employment that “allows them to build a career or pay for further schooling.”

President Barack Obama’s “America’s College Promise” proposal to provide students with free tuition to attend community colleges for two years may also give high school graduates a boost.

Kimball also agreed that high school graduates that didn’t have jobs lined up could benefit from President Barack Obama’s plan to provide students with two years of free tuition at a community college.

Nearly half of college graduates younger than 27 yearsold are still working jobs that don’t require a college degree and those jobs “are of lower quality now than they used to be,” the report said.

Gould said that, on the individual level, it may or may not be a good investment for people to go to college, because of increasing college costs and flat wages.

“Making college more affordable, changes that equation,” said Gould.

Ultimately, the EPI report found that the down economy affects young workers in many of the same ways that it affects older workers and because the causes of their job struggles are the, same so are many of the solutions.

“The bottom line is that policies that will generate demand for U.S. goods and services and therefore demand for workers who provide them, policies that will bring down unemployment, policies that will give workers more power,” the report stated, “And policies that will raise workers’ wages are the keys to giving young people a fighting chance as they enter the labor market during the aftermath of the Great Recession.”

Researchers said that targeted jobs programs and investments in infrastructure would drive the economy toward full employment.

Kimball said that there are plenty of labor standards that policymakers can work on that can boost the bargaining power that workers have, including raising the minimum wage, updating the overtime salary threshold and ensuring greater access to paid sick and parental leave for workers.

Davis said that the problems that young graduates face in the job market are not unique compared to the overall economy and that the fates of young graduates are tied to the overall economy. That’s why any solutions aimed at supporting graduates and helping them find jobs in today’s market will also help other workers in the labor force.

“When we raise the minimum wage it usually translates to wage growth for everybody,” said Davis.

Kimball added that a minimum wage increase would also help those that are working their way through college.

Gould said that the idea that millennials are choosing to sit on the sidelines, complaining about not getting the job that they want, is misguided, because recent graduates are entering the labor market with an economy that is still recovering from a historic recession.

“[Millenials] are likely to fair poorly in the labor market and that is going to have long-term effects for them,” said Gould. “Things have improved from the depths of the Great Recession, but for young workers, it’s still going to be slow going.”

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‘Jim Crow Was and Remains Real in Alameda County (and) It Is What We Are Challenging and Trying to Fix Every Day,’ Says D.A. Pamela Price

“The legacy of Jim Crow is not just a legacy in Alameda County. It’s real. It is what is happening and how (the system is) operating, and that is what we are challenging and trying to fix every day,” said D.A. Price, speaking to the Oakland Post by telephone for over an hour last Saturday. “Racial disparities in this county have never been effectively eliminated, and we are applying and training our lawyers on the (state’s) Racial Justice Act, and we’re implementing it in Alameda County every day,” she said.

Published

4 hours ago

November 2, 2024

Oakland Post

Exclusive interview with County D.A. Price days before recall election. Photo by Ken Epstein.

By Ken Epstein

Part One

Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price gave an exclusive in-depth interview, speaking with the Oakland Post about the continuing legacy of Jim Crow injustice that she is working to overturn and her major achievements, including:

restoring and expanding services for victims of crime,
finding funding for an alternative to incarceration and/or prosecution for substance use and mental health-related misdemeanors and
aggressively prosecuting corporations for toxic pollution and consumer violations.

“Racial disparities in this county have never been effectively eliminated, and we are applying and training our lawyers on the (state’s) Racial Justice Act, and we’re implementing it in Alameda County every day,” she said.

Passed by the State Legislature, this law “is an extremely helpful tool for us to address the racial disparities that continue to exist in our system,” she said.

(The law addresses) “the racial disparities that we find in our juvenile justice system, where 86% of all felony juvenile arrests in the county are Black or Brown children.

“We trained the entire workforce on the Racial Justice Act. We are creating a data system that will allow us to look at the trends and to clearly identify where racism has infected the process. We know that where law enforcement is still engaging in racial profiling and unfair targeting and arresting, we’re trying to make sure we’re catching that.”

Many people do not know much about the magnitude of Alameda County District Attorney’s job. Her office is a sprawling organization with 10 offices serving 1.6 million people living in 14 cities and six unincorporated areas, with a budget this year of about $104 million.

Asked about her major achievements since she took office last year, she is especially proud of the expanded and renewed victims’ services division in the DA’s Office, she said.

“We have expanded and reorganized the entire claims division so that we are now expediting as much as possible the benefits that victims are entitled to. Under my predecessor, they were having to wait anywhere, sometimes as long as a year, to 400 days to get benefits.

“Claims had been denied that should not have been denied. So, we’re helping people file appeals on claims that were denied under her tenure,” D.A. Price said.

“Under my predecessor, (the victims’ service office) was staffed by people who were not trained to provide trauma-informed services to victims, and yet they were the only people that the victims were in contact with. We immediately stopped that practice,” she continued.

“We had to expand the advocate workforce to include people who speak Hmong, the indigenous language of so many people in this county who are victims of crime.”

More African Americans advocates were hired because they represent the largest percentage of crime victims and we hired a transgender advocate and advocates who speak Cantonese and Mandarin. “The predominantly Chinese American community in Oakland was not being served by advocates who speak the language,” said D Price

“We reduced the lag time from the delivery of benefits to victims from 300 to 400 days down to less than 60 days.”

She increased victim advocacy by 38%, providing critical support to over 22,500 victims, a key component of community safety.

Other major achievements:

She recently filed 12 felony charges against a man accused of multiple armed robberies, demonstrating her seriousness about prosecuting violent crimes
In October, a jury delivered a guilty verdict in the double murder trial of former Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputy Devin Williams, showing DA Price’s commitment to holding law enforcement accountable.
She recently charged a man and woman in unincorporated San Leandro with murder, felony unlawful firearm activity, and felony carrying a loaded firearm in public.
A. Price’s office was awarded a $6 million grant by the state for its CARES Navigation Center diversion program. In partnership with the UnCuffed Project at a Seventh Day Adventist Church in Oakland, the program provides resources and referrals for services to residents as an alternative to incarceration and/or prosecution for substance use and mental health-related misdemeanors.

“This is the largest grant investment in the history of the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office,” said D.A. Price.

She explained that the program now has a mobile unit. “We have washers and dryers. We have a living room. We have a television. It’s a place where people can decompress, get themselves stabilized,” she said.

The project has “the ability to refer people to housing, to more long-term mental health services, to social services, and to assist them in other ways.”

Her office joined in a $49 million statewide settlement with Kaiser Health Plan and Hospitals, resolving allegations that the healthcare provider unlawfully disposed of hazardous waste, medical waste, and protected health information. The settlement, which involved the state and a half dozen counties, resulted in Alameda County receiving $7 million for its residents.
DA Price charged a former trucking company employee for embezzling over $4.3 million, showing her commitment to tackling white-collar crime.
For the first time, Alameda County won a criminal grand jury indictment of a major corporation with two corporate officers that have been sources of pollution. “They had a record of settlements and pollution in this community, and they had a fire that constituted a grave danger,” she said.

Attorney Walter Riley contributed to this article.

See Part Two

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Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

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1 day ago

November 1, 2024

Oakland Post

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Business

Chevron Reports Progress in Flaring, Emissions at Community Town Hall

At the first in a series of community town halls on Oct. 16, Chevron Richmond reported a reduction in year-over-year flaring incidents, both in number and duration, and detailed new technologies and processes that will further drive down emissions and heighten community awareness about operations. Chevron employees also answered questions from the community and listened to concerns at the town hall, which was hosted by Ceres Policy Research and held at CoBiz in downtown Richmond.

Published

5 days ago

October 28, 2024

Oakland Post

Community member Kathleen Sullivan speaks at the Chevron town hall. Photo courtesy Richmond Standard.

By Mike Aldax

The Richmond Standard

Chevron employees also answered questions from the community and listened to concerns at the town hall, which was hosted by Ceres Policy Research and held at CoBiz in downtown Richmond.

Similar town halls will be held twice per year over the next five years as part of a settlement agreement with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD).

The goal is to increase transparency about flaring and increase opportunities for the community to get answers to their questions about potential impacts to the community.

A key output is the creation of a Community Action Plan, or CAP. The CAP aims to create a two-way dialogue between Chevron and neighbors around flaring and environmental compliance.

“Chevron’s focus in this process is one of learning and engagement,” said Brian Hubinger, public affairs manager at Chevron Richmond. “We felt the most efficient way was to bring together a broad selection of community members rather than just think about what it would take to comply with the settlement agreement.”

The first town hall drew a few dozen members of the community, including Chevron employees, representatives of fence-line neighborhoods and members of local environmental organizations.

During the event, Chevron employees reported that 19 BAAQMD-reportable flaring incidents occurred at the refinery from October 2022 to September 2023 with a total duration of 270 hours. During the same period this year, 18 flaring incidents occurred with a total duration of 159 hours, marking a 41% decrease in duration.

Further gains are expected with the implementation of Flare IQ, set to be installed this year and next on all of the refinery’s flaring systems. Flare IQ is described as a supercomputer with an algorithm that gathers data from operations and enables employees to address potential issues before they occur.

Chevron also reported a 40% decrease in particulate matter emissions since the completion of the refinery modernization project in 2018.

In addition, flare gas volume related to Chevron’s new hydrogen plant project, built as part of the modernization project, decreased by 85% since 2019. The hydrogen plant has also reportedly made the refinery 20% more efficient.

“We’re really proud about that,” said Kris Battleson, manager of health, safety and environment at Chevon Richmond.

Neighborhood council leaders joined the president of the local NAACP in lauding the effort toward transparency and accountability. Among them was Vernon Whitmore, president of the Sante Fe Neighborhood Council and member of the 15-person CAP committee.

“The way we were able to talk openly and freely with Chevron – honestly, bluntly and frankly – while developing this program was very good,” Whitmore said. “And it was something that was well-needed at this time.”

Still, residents are skeptical, including Kathleen Sullivan, a longtime community advocate who also serves on the CAP committee. But she added, “you can’t complain about something and not be involved in the solution.”