More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City

Since Elliott Liebow wrote Tally’s Corner: A Study of Street Corner Men in the 1960s, joblessness has become even more severe among black males. Long-term joblessness leads to a lessening of self-confidence and feelings of resignation. Allison K. Rodean and Christopher H. Wheeler argue that black males were more isolated from the job market in 2000 than in 1980 (64). Unemployment and joblessness disproportionately reside in inner-city neighborhoods. The ranks of idle inner-city men have swelled since the 1970s. The extremely limited annual earnings for black males reveal high rates of joblessness. These men could not support their families. Andrew Sum from Northeastern University showed that only one in three high school dropouts was able to find work (66). Many such men become involved in criminality. Women are exceeding men in college graduation, especially within black populations. The employment gap between blacks and whites widens dramatically among less educated groups. Therefore, education plays a key role in enabling black men to secure employment.

Structural factors creating problems for low-skilled workers include globalization and the technological revolution. Decreasing relative demand since the 1990s means unskilled workers face sharp job losses, especially in manufacturing, which had been a major source of employment for black workers since the Second World War. Black workers are more likely to be unionized than other races, but numbers of black union members have dwindled. The problem starts with education: Inner-city schools are inferior to suburban schools. Bruce Western’s Punishment and Inequality in America showed that black male high school dropouts are at high risk for incarceration, with numbers soaring during Bill Clinton’s tenure. Thus, cultural shifts in perceptions of black males have created corresponding structural changes, in the form of a more punitive criminal justice system.   

Harry Holzer argues that child support is a daunting problem. For many black males, high child support payments are a disincentive from entering the mainstream labor market. Problems are aggravated by employer bias against black males in Chicago, as a study in the 1990s showed. Often due to shame and social codes, black males’ access to casual job networks is limited. A study by Devah Pager revealed that a white ex-convict was more likely to gain employment than a black man without a record (75). Employment of young black women exceeds that of black men. This is in part because of the shift from manufacturing to service roles, in which black men are perceived as threatening. As a result, black male jobseekers face rising rates of rejection. Jamie Peck and Nik Theodore point out that job agencies favor applicants who are easy to place, to the detriment of black male workers (77). The high incarceration rate of black males affects joblessness in a vicious cycle. If these men complain about their plight, they appear even less appealing to employers. Therefore, it is important to link employment of young black males to both structural and cultural factors.

Structural factors are more impactful on employment for young black males than culture. Patterson, however, considers the role of culture, such as the “cool pose” behavior that can draw young black men away from progression in mainstream society. “Cool pose culture” is typically defined in terms of the impregnation of women, and the valorization of footloose fatherhood may have been transmitted through the generations (80). Patterson contextualizes this within the traumatic history of young black males, including their disillusionment with an adverse social milieu and pre-1960s legal segregation. Lawrence Mead contends that blacks’ employment woes can be attributed to subcultures of defeatism and resistance (83). These subcultures, he claims, are the psychic impacts of experiences of slavery. His explanation does not account for why joblessness has increased among black males. Ethnographic research by Newman shows that conversely, Harlem workers adhere to mainstream values and accept low-wage jobs (83). Alford Young found that all respondents to a survey agreed that individuals are responsible for their failure to advance in society (83), yet repeated failure results in resignation, in which negative employer attitudes are a powerful influence.

An analysis by Jennifer Hochschild shows that poor blacks acknowledge discrimination in national surveys but fail to see that it affects them personally (85). Poor inner-city blacks are untraveled and unlikely to perceive the structural inequalities that underlie their experiences. Mead argues that blacks reject menial jobs, suggesting that they turn down low-income jobs out of pride. However, as Sandra Smith points out, Mead misstates the meaning of the evidence (86). Another study suggests that black male joblessness has more to do with the cultural attitudes of African Americans versus immigrants. African Americans may be resentful that they must accept such work, as it reminds them of their subordinated status. Stephen Petterson analyzed data on young people’s reservation wages in the 1970s (87). Once again, we see that structural factors play a central role in joblessness. Petterson found that blacks sought wages 16% higher than their previous wages, compared with whites, who sought wages 10% higher. However, this difference may simply reflect the higher concentration of blacks in low-wage jobs.

Smith conducted a study on young workers in Michigan in response to the study in Chicago. Ethnographic data analysis revealed that social contacts were a useful means to making ends meet but not in securing long-term employment. Distrust in inner-city neighborhoods negatively impacts cooperation and the mutual trust that might lead to employment. Smith found that a discourse of individualism, shame, and pride also prove self-defeating in gaining employment. Once again, structural forces are more significant that cultural ones in black male unemployment. The legacies of historical segregation and discrimination, and the growth of the service industry in place of manufacturing, have left black males adrift. Cultural traits such as lack of trust also undermine job recommendations. These forces combine to handicap the employment rates of young black males, especially those with prison records.