Thursday, June 25, 2020

Evil Black Economist is Moving



We are happy to announce we are moving !!!

Please visit our new blog at:


We now feature weekly updates of all Black Business and Economic Stories plus new and interesting and exciting new content. 

As always, if you have any comments, suggestions or story ideas, please send them to:

Chris@BlackEconBiz.com

Monday, June 1, 2020

Top Black Business and Economic Stories for the Week of May 24th to May 31st




Top Black Business and Economic Stories for the 

Week of May 24th to May 31st


Protest Related


Minneapolis has some of the worst inequality in the US (Washington Post)

UC Berkeley News has a piece about ignoring the advice of the Kerner Commission called "The Road Not Taken: 50 Years After the Kerner Commission."


In 1968, The Kerner Commission Got It Right, But No One Listened(Smithsonian Magazine)

Quick Summary: The riots were caused by segregation(White flight) and lack of economic opportunity. Duh.

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Blackout Day is July 7th

Social Media is calling for Blackout Day on July 7th. A nationwide boycott of all spending by Black people. In addition people should spend 15% of their incomes with Black people. The campaign is called Blackout 2020.

The hash tag is #BlackOutDay2020 on Instagram and Facebook.  There are details at the BlackCoalition.org.


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Camille Squires (Mother Jones) asks the right question: "How much do looted stores really contribute to the local community?"

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Marijuana Industry should deliver social justice (Pot Network)

If any industry owes something to Black people, it's the Marijuana Industry, which is controlled by rich, White men.


Covid-19


Black New Yorkers hit with high layoffs(NY Patch)

Black business is Boston try to stay open (Boston 25 News)

Black barbers and stylist work from home (LA Times)

Work in the hair industry is difficult with social distancing(ABC News)

Massachusetts business look for equitable development and recovery (Mass Inc)

Racism and Inequality


Racism is the reason the US has such a weak social safety net(NoahSmith writes in Bloomberg opinion)

Older piece from 2019 on same topic(Marketwatch)

Black Wealth 2020 details “equality” policy proposals to lawmakers(Charleston Chronicle). 

Black people invest in the stock market at much lower rates than others. (Investors Business Daily)

The stock market since 2008 has been a great investment



Discrimination 


Massachusetts Attorney General wins $380,000 settlement with ENE Systems over false claims of hiring minority subcontractors.(WGBH)


Reparations


Human Rights Watch has produced a report on the Tulsa Race Riot / Greenwood Massacre Reparations study(Human Rights Watch)


General Economics

Many of the problems in US society and Black communities can be linked to de-industrialization. Senator Marco Rubio(R-FL) believes de-industrialization reduced Black opportunities which contributed to covid related deaths among Blacks.

De-industrialization(The Hour)

Sen. Marco Rubio proposes industrialization to close Black White income gap.(The Federalist)


Other


Seventeen medical schools with the highest percentage of African Americans(Yahoo Finance)

A majority of first round NFL picks have Black agents.(Black Press USA)(W

State budget under huge pressure as Lottery Sales have fallen off(NJ TapInfo)

Andrea Harris, leader of Black economic development, dies (ABC 11 Raleigh - Durham)



History Lesson

Sarah Rector was a Black female millionaire during the 1920s. She made her money when oil was discovered on her family’s land. The US Government forced the land to be given to the family by the  tribe who held her family as slaves.

How native Americans adopted slavery from White Americans. (Al Jazeera)

Members of five Native American nations, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole Nations (known as the Five Tribes) owned black slaves.

From last week


Less than 40% of Black Business still open (Jacksonville Free Press)



Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Top Black Business Stories for Week of May 18th to 24th



Economic Indicators:


"Real" Black Employment Rate     24.8%
Unemployment U-3                        14.7%
DJIA                                               24,995


Tyler Perry Plans to reopen studio


Tyler Perry productions plans to re-open it's TV studio this summer. They plan to start production on at least two TV shows. They will follow strict workplace safety measures. 



Study find Black and Spanish businesses are not receiving PPP loans

Unidos US, Color of Change and Global Strategy Group surveyed 500 Black and LatinX business owners and 1200 Black and Spanish workers.  They found that up to 45% of Black and Spanish business owners may close by the end of the year.  More than half of the business (51%) have applied for assistance ($20,000 dollars or less), only 12% got anything.

Here's the press release. You can also view a summary presentation here.



Working black business drop by 40% 

The Washington Post reports that Black businesses are having a difficult time during the Coronavirus Pandemic. New research show that in April up to 450,000 active Black businesses have closed.



NAACP call for more PPP lending by congress to Minority Communities

NAACP would like to see more minority lending in the PPP program



How to help Black businesses in Baltimore

Wayne Frazier, writing in the Baltimore Business Journal, has some ideas for assisting minority businesses. 



Robert Smith offers advice on getting PPP loans


Robert Smith appeared on the CBS Morning news with Gayle King. Robert Smith, CEO of Vista Equity Partners, is the richest Black Billionaire in the US with a net worth of $5 billion dollars. He is known for paying off the entire student debt of last years graduating class at Morehouse College. 

Reality TV Personality Charged with Bank Fraud

The justice department charged "Arkansas Mo", real name Maurice Fayne, with Bank Fraud.  He is a reality TV start on Love and Hip-Hop: Atlanta.  He owns Flame Trucking. He is accused of misusing a $2 million dollar PPP loan for personal items rather meeting his business payroll.  


Magic Johnson and NAN help loan $100 Million




Credit denials by race to be collected




President Trump meets with Black leaders in Michigan

President Trump met with Black leaders in the Ford Rawsonville Components Plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan before touring the plant.

The president read a prepared statement of accomplishments and generic remarks which included his hits: “China is responsible for the virus” and “Black people had the lowest unemployment rate ever.” He ended with remarks opposing mail-in voting.


Several of the leaders work directly for him. One leader is a senate candidate in Michigan. Here is a partial list:

Ben Carson Sr., M.D., Secretary Department of Housing and Urban Development
Scott Turner, Executive Director, White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council
John James, Senate Candidate - Michigan
Ja Ron Smith – Assistant to President for Domestic Policy
Karen Whitsett, State Representative, Michigan
Pastor Darrell Scott



You may have missed


City Lab has a good story on under investment in Black neighborhoods. The City Lab link is here.

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Joe Biden released a plan for Black America called “Lift Every Voice”.

The plan address proposes to “improve economic mobility, close racial wealth gaps, improve education, and end health disparities by race." There are also some justice related ideas such as promoting a fairer justice system, increasing voter access and addressing environmental issues.

Our View: While the proposals are certainly needed, it’s a rather small and timid grab bag of extensions to existing programs. It does not do much to tackle underlying issues.  However, given where we are with the Trump administration, the plan is a welcome change of tone and direction.



Interesting People







Other


The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 500 points to 24,995 on the hopes of opening the US economy and a vaccine.  

Sunday, May 24, 2020

National unemployment rate at 14.7%; Non-Farm Payrolls drop 20.5 million in April

Unemployment in April signals long-term problems for US economy; Black Unemployment increases less than expected


The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced depression level unemployment levels in the April employment situation report.  Twenty two million people lost their jobs as the country shut down due to coronavirus. There was wide spread layoffs across all industries and across all racial and gender groups.  During the past eight weeks about 30 million initial claims for unemployment were filled with state labor departments.




The official national unemployment rate was reported as 14.7%.  The real rate is presumed to be around 25% based on weekly unemployment claims. The leisure and hospitality industry was the hit the hardest by the pandemic losing 7.6 million jobs.





There was wide spread unemployment across all worker groups: White unemployment was 14.2%, for Blacks it was 16.7% and Hispanic’s 18.9%. The Hispanic rate jumped 12.9% while the White rate rose 10.2% and the Black rate moved 10%.  It is probably the first time the Black rate rose less than all other rates. Many believe the reason is the type of essential jobs many Black people hold.



Women have lost more jobs than men during the current crisis.  During the last recession, it was men who got hit hardest. About eight million women lost jobs during April as compared to million men. The unemployment rate for women stood at 15.5% against 13.0% for men.  Economist are not sure, but they believe the reason for the higher job losses is that women provide almost all of the child care and they are concentrated in vulnerable industries like hospitality and healthcare.

The labor force participation rate dropped -2.5% to 60.2% and the employment to population (EM) ratio tanked -8.7% to 51.3%. The EM ratio tells us that only 50% of the people in the US are working.

About 18 million people reported themselves as on “temporarily laid off” rather than permanent job losers.  The number of people not in the labor force who want jobs was 9.9 million. Discouraged workers (who have given up looking) stayed flat at 574,000.

The “real” unemployment rate (U-6) stood at 22.8%. U-6 is everyone who want a job or more hours.
The index of weekly working hours fell by 15%.

The diffusion index which captures businesses hiring trends stood at 5 of 100: The lowest ever. Anything above 50 is an expected increase in hiring.  The index was 62 in a year ago (Apr 2019)

The US quarterly GDP is expected to fall by 8% to 10%. The stock market (DJIA) continued to bubble up slowly.  The index was recorded at 23,625 about 2,000 points higher than its Coronavirus low.



Business Survey Results

Non-farms payrolls also lost 20.5 million jobs in April 2020. All sectors and industries lost jobs. Major losses occurred in Leisure and Hospitality, Health and Education, Goods Production and Retail trade.


Certain kinds of business were especially hard hit:  Restaurants and Bars lost 5.5 million positions, Retail lost 2.1 million, Education and Health lost 2.5 million and Business and professional services got rid of 2.2 million workers.




A lot of these losses were expected, but some other areas also shrank.  These are important sectors to keep an eye on: Construction, down -900K; Cars and Trucks(725K), -381K in production and -344K in sales; Air Transport, -140K; Mass Transit, -185K; Movies and Music, -216K; Temporary Work, 842K; Outpatient Healthcare,-1,188,000; Child Care, -336,000; Amusement Parks, Gambling and Recreation, -1,062K; Hotels, -839K and Local Government, 801K.

There were two industries that actually added workers. Can you guess? It was “General merchandise stores, including warehouse clubs and super centers” which added 93,000 workers. And the “Couriers and messengers” category, which added 1,800 people.  The industry sector with the best quality jobs and the least job losses was “Utilities” which shed only -3,000 jobs.

The Black Unemployment Rate

The Black unemployment rate jumped from 6.7% to 16.7%. The number of employed Black workers went down from 19.2 million to 12.2 million a loss of approximately 3 million jobs.

The unemployment rate for Black men, 20 and order, was 16.1% while Black women in the same age group were unemployed at a rate of 16.4%. More than one million Black Women lost their jobs.The Black labor force participation rate another measure of employment fell 4 percentage points to 59%.
The employment to population (EM) ratio fell to 49%.  There are more Black people are not working than working.

For the first time ever, the Black unemployment rate increased less than the White rate.  Also the difference between the Black and White rate fell to 2%, also the lowest ever.  During the 2008 recession, the difference in rate was as high as 7%.

The chart below shows the Black unemployment rate and the black Labor Force Participation.



As is our custom, we calculate the real Black unemployment rate: about 25% in April. Both the Black unemployment rate and the US U-6 rate climbed to record levels in April. U-6 is basically anyone who wants to work and has looked in the past 12 months plus part time people who want full time work.


ADP reported -20.2 million employment changes from March to April: Small Business (1-49) lost -6 million staff; mid-sized companies lost -5.2 million and large companies laid off -8.9 million.



















Monday, May 18, 2020

Top Black Business Stories for Week of May 10th to 17th

Top Black Business and Economic Stories for Week of May 10th to 17th



DJIA                                            23,679
Unemployment (U-3,U-6)           14.7, 22.8             
US Covid-19 Growth Rate           ~1.0%

COVID-19







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Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) / Small Business Loan Program

Charlene Crowell from the Center for Responsible Lending writes about minority business being excluded from the Paycheck Protection program.



The SBA released an audit report of the Paycheck Protection Program.

The Paycheck Protection Program does not even mention minority businesses but it does acknowledge it failed to reach them.  In fact even the word "minority" is used only once in the document which quickly switches to the term: "under served." 



P. Diddy helps businesses access the Paycheck Protection Program

Sean "P. Diddy" Combs created a website to help Black business access Paycheck Protection Program. You can view the Our fair share website here.


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Urban Planning 


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Economic News


Highlights: 25% unemployment, no V-shaped recovery, demand will be low as people save and at least 20% GDP shrinkage. Long interview with some details.  The usual fed speak, but it was 60 minutes, so the fed is worried about the average consumer(worker a little less) 

He did mouth the administration Trope about: “Lowest Black unemployment ever,” so he loses points. The rate was low because they ran out of people to hire.  Check the participation rate and EM ratio. Also wage are the lowest they have been for 40 years.  Plus job quality of work life stinks. So, they might be jobs, but they sure aren't good jobs. 

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Academic Journals



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Unemployment

Lots of Unemployment stories, so we will pick three good ones


The BLS released the April Unemployment report on May 8th with depression levels of joblessness.  The narrow national unemployment rate was recorded at 14.7%. The boarder, U-6 (everyone who wants to work plus people who want more hours) stood at 22.8%.  More than twenty million payroll jobs were lost.

The unemployment rate for Black spiked at 16.7%, but the Black/White unemployment rate gap narrowed, meaning more Whites were laid off than Blacks (proportionally).
Leisure and Hospitality lost a staggering 7.6 million jobs of which 5.5 million were restaurants and bars.



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Politics



The plan address proposes to “improve economic mobility, close racial wealth gaps, improve education, and end health disparities by race. There are also some justice related ideas such as promoting a fairer justice system, increasing voter access and addressing environmental justice issues.

Our View:  The mild plan is a welcome change of tone and direction.While the proposals are certainly needed, it’s a rather small and timid grab bag of extensions to existing programs. 

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Interesting People


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Other




Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Weekly Unemployment Figures Signal Depression



Weekly Unemployment Figures Signal Depression Level Job Losses
Unemployment rate is 15.% and continues to rise


The weekly unemployment claims report for May 7th showed incredible number of job losses as people filed claims for unemployment insurance.  For the week ending May 2nd reported that 3,169,000 people filed an initial claim for unemployment insurance.  That's down 677K from the April 25th figure of 3,846,000 people. This months figure is 15 times the average for the past year. 

Continuing Claims

The May 7th report also captured 22,647,000 people who filed continuing claims for unemployment assistance for the weekly of April 25th, and increase of 4,636,000 claims.  The estimated unemployment rate was 15.5%

The Department of Labor weekly claims report is the go to report in these fast changing times. It's released every week.  The report captures all the new people who have filed for unemployment relief and the people continuing to receive unemployment relief. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the detailed "Employment Situation" report on the first friday of each month. The April report, released May 8th, 2020 only partially captured how bad the job losses were from Covid-19. So everyone is watching the weekly report. 







Thursday, May 7, 2020

Interesting Readings for December 2019




Black Celebrities try to buy Disney sports channels

From February and May 2019, we reported that a number of Black celebrities had expressed interest in purchasing 22 TV sports channels from the Disney Company.  The sports channels show local live sports like the YES channel in the New York area which has exclusive rights to broadcast the NY Yankees. Local sports has become a "must carry" so the channels have an almost guaranteed income.

Disney was forced to divest on anti-competitive grounds.

Ice Cube (O'Shea Jackson) and LL Cool J (James Todd Smith) have reportedly bid on 22 television sports channels Disney was forced to sell.  The asking price is between $15 to 22 Billion dollars. Apparently Ervin "Magic" Johnson and Will Smith were also part of the deal.

https://www.thebeatdc.com/blog/2019/4/22/will-smith-and-magic-johnson-join-ll-cool-j-and-ice-cubes-effort-to-buy-sports-stations

Sinclair broadcasting ended up purchasing 21 TV sports channels from Disney Company.

Amazon also made a bid.  The YES network bought the remaining rights to the Yankees.

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Byron Allen Sues Comcast for Racial Discrimination


Byron Allen brought a court case against Comcast for refusing to carry his entertainments channels.

Byron Allen's company is here https://entertainmentstudios.com/

Sean Combs (Puffy Daddy) own revolt.tv https://www.revolt.tv/

And Oprah Winfry owns own network. http://www.oprah.com/app/own-tv.html

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NY Times: Bank manager and customer detail bank discrimination at JP Morgan Chase

NY Times

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Black Franchises Complain about cash flow issues

CNBC


National Black McDonalds Operators Association
https://nbmoa.org/

National Hispanic Owner Operators Association
https://mhoa.wildapricot.org/

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Robert Johnson's Ex, Sheila Johnson, Operates a luxury hotel chain

https://www.salamanderhotels.com/


Tuesday, April 28, 2020

What were reading: April 2020



Coronavirus

Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Small Business Loan Program

Charlene Crowell from the Center for Responsible Lending writes about minority business being excluded from the Paycheck Protection program.

Small Business Program short changes Businesses of Color

Black Businesses have trouble getting PPP loans (Newsone)

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Track the Relief Bill Spending

The Committee for Responsible Federal Budget has a great coronavirus relief bill tracker.

Coronavirus Relief Bill Tracker

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Black Barbershops face difficult times

CNN covers the story

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P. Diddy helps businesses access the Paycheck Protection Program

Sean "P. Diddy" Combs creates website to help Black business access Paycheck Protection Program.

You can view the Our fair share website here.

The Network Journal has the story here.



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Earl Graves, Founder of Black Enterprise Magazine, dies at 85

Earl Graves was a long time champion of Black Business.   He created Black Enterprise magazine in 1970 that showcased Black business and Black corporate executives.  He wrote a well known  book: "How to Succeed in Business without being White." He also served on the boards of  major corporations including American Airlines, Rohm & Hass, and Federated Department Stores. He sat of several important board and ran the DC Pepsi bottling franchise for several years.

Black Enterprise has the details
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Daymond John reportedly tried to sell Florida N95 masks for $7 dollars a piece


He denied the story in the NY Daily News. The winning bid was priced at $7.50 per mask for 30 million masks.

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Reparations

Sandy Darity and Kirsten Mullen have an article in Newsweek explaining how Covid-19 has exposed the need for reparations. Coronavirus making the case for Reparations. They also have a new book called  "From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century."

Marketing

Tyrha Lindsey-Warren, Ph.D., clinical assistant professor of marketing in Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business. Has identified the best storytelling ads during the Coronavirus Pandemic

Storytelling ads during Coronavirus


Media and Entertainment Business


Variety: Recording Academy hires Butterfield Jones as Diversity Officer

The Recording Academy is the primary organizer for the Grammy Awards

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Urban One layoffs

Urban One, is the successor to Cathy Hughes' Radio one. The layoffs were Coronavirus related.

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Retail

WalletHub reports spending patterns during Coronavirus Pandemic

WalletHub, an internet financial planning website, surveyed 450 people about their spending patterns during the Coronavirus Pandemic . Overall people were spending less money during the Pandemic. The largest category was entertainment, alcohol, clothing and beauty products.

WalletHub also projected it's survey results by scaling them up to the whole US.  For example, 23% of people in the survey said they were spending more money during the pandemic.  That equates to 58 Million people spending more money.

Restaurants and Food Service

FDA promotes best practices for restaurants and food service

The six foot distancing maybe unworkable in restaurants and kitchens







Sunday, December 8, 2019

What were reading. October/November Edition



Future of Work in Black America

McKinsey Consulting has a October 2019 article on where the jobs will be in the future.  They report that Black people are poorly positioned to take advantage of new jobs and new locations. The study looks at occupation and geographic effects of automation.

The study documents how African Americans are in industries likely to be affect by automation.  The good news is that geographically, Black people are well positioned for new jobs.

The authors suggest education and retraining to manage the transition.

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Color of Wealth in Los Angles

This is an old study from 2016 by the Federal Reserve in San Francisco on the wealth of different California populations. It is a really good detailed study of wealth and assets in Los Angeles.  The conclusion is that African Americans in Los Angles have close to zero wealth.  It includes a category called "African Black" for comparison.

Report has some interesting tidbits. Between 2000 and 2014, the Asian Indian population jump 117% in California and 60% in LA while the Black population had 0% increase statewide and -10% decrease in LA.

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Another Zero Black Wealth Story

Institute for Policies Studies also has a zero Black wealth study. This one is from September 2017.

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Work Opportunity Tax Credit

I recently filled out an application for Bed, Bath and Beyond based in Union, NJ.  They sent back a survey for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit.  The WOTC gives a tax credit if you hire someone from a targeted group "that has faced significant barriers to employment.

The groups of people includes the following people Veterans, ex-felons, people get TANF, people between 18 and 40 who live in an empowerment zone, opportunity zone or renewal community, physical or mental disability, summer youth employment from opportunity zone, SNAP recipient, SSI recipient, family on long term family assistance, and long -term unemployed.

It was part of the PATH tax bill which updates business tax breaks every two year.

You can see the areas covered by empowerment zones on the IRS website.

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Keeping it too real in the HR department


From April 2019, Cynet Systems was busted for post a job ad that specifically said  "Preferably Caucasian"

https://diversity.com/blog/preferably-caucasian/

https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-company-apology-preferably-caucasian-applicants-2019-4
https://www.cynetsystems.com/

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Black lottery winner reinvests in the community

https://www.theroot.com/black-lottery-winner-invests-winnings-into-rebuilding-f-1820392458

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Role Models

I teach computers in a predominately Spanish speaking high school.  I have a long running contest for finding a Latina or Spanish speaking woman who is recognized in technology. And the person must be Afro-Latino.

Me and my students have cumulatively spent hours on this search only to come up empty handed.

Well at least people are writing about the issue. Reveal has a long piece about secret diversity data in silicon vally.

https://www.revealnews.org/article/hidden-figures-how-silicon-valley-keeps-diversity-data-secret/


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Good old general inequality

The Congressional Budget Office has the graphs.

https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-07/55413-CBO-distribution-of-household-income-2016.pdf



Thursday, August 29, 2019

What were reading on July 24th, 2019


Black men have a 1 in 1000 chance of being killed by the police

Black men between 20 and 35 years old have a one in 1000 chance of being killed by the police. The research comes from a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  The researchers used news reports and other publicly available sources to collect the information.  The FBI, state and local police do not record police killings by race.

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Black women start business in record numbers

We just found a report from the KC fed on Black women in business. The report is here.  The report has no date but was based on focus groups conducted in 2017 in Kansas City, MO.

The survey found that the number of Black women owned businesses increased by 179% during the period from 2002 to 2012.  Business owned by Black women were concentrated in service, healthcare and social assistance and administrative support. Many businesses were small, employed few people and were community or passion related. The business owners reported trouble securing financing.

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Economist report manufacturing job losses 20 year late

In the "Closing the barn door after the horse has bolted" category, three economists report that multi-national corporations (MNC) were responsible for most of the manufacturing job losses in the US after China joined the WTO in 2001.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research has the story.

The story is sad on a lot of levels:

1) It's the year 2019 and they are coming out with the paper now.  Not 20 or 30 years ago when it would have been useful to prevent the huge loss of good paying jobs in the US..  So there is a huge speed problem in academia related to useful policy research.

2) Second, the researchers themselves could not even get the data. They had to develop their own data set. In other words, corporations didn't want the data collected and the government went along with them. We all looked the other way. This is another instance of the Senators and US représentatives directly hurting our economy by using their power to block data collection.

3) Third, the loss of good jobs played a direct role in electing president Trump. The large amount of the loss which was not replaced was in the US midwest. Coastal cities replaced much of their manufacturing with real estate, finance and technology.

4) Fourth, We all kind of knew what was happening.  This writer was laid of twice during this same time period. It's just surprising how little was done to stop this devastating process.

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Tax cut in 2017 causes huge increase in deficit

The C ongressional Research Service has reviewed the 2017 tax cut. The tax act of 2017 added $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the long term, with only a short bump up in GDP from it's long term trend of 2.1%.  A large amount of money was repatriated to the US and then used for dividends.

Congressional Research Service preliminary report on Tax Act of 2017

Consensus view of economists is that deficits don't matter

However, most economist have moved to the position that deficits, below a certain level of GDP, don't matter.  They believe the US is below that level.  Instead the deficits were and are used a political weapon again government spending and entitlement programs.

Deficits don't matter #1: Bloomberg
Deficits don't matter #1: Quartz 
Deficits don't matter #2: The Conversation

A little annoyed that articles always run a picture of the photogenic AOC
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Let's beat up Labor

The Trump administration is one of the most anti-labor presidencies of all time -- LA Times. I just can't figure out how they get away with it.

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Tipping's Racist Past -- Article

Rev. Dr. William Barber writes about tipping as racist in Politico. His goal is to abolish the tipped wage.  Herman Cain, Trumps favorite Black person, gets a mention in the story so you know it's good.

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Amazon hates cashiers

Amazon is spending on  store without cashiers. According to the BLS, as of May 2018, there were about 3.6 million cashiers.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-07-18/amazon-s-most-ambitious-research-project-is-a-convenience-store

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Looking at Black women's economic status

Black women's equal pay day is August 22, 2019. In other words, they have to work until August of the following year (2019) to earn what White men earned in 2018.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/08/report-black-women-are-working-hard-but-our-country-is-not-working-for-them/?noredirect=on


Black / White wage gap may be due to Whites not sharing knowledge on the job with Blacks.  The study notes how difficult it is for Blacks in a predominately White environment.

Again on CEPR Vox. 


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Other stuff

This one is a must read

New York Times 1619 Project on the impact of slavery

We also had to go back to Raj Chetty's article on inter generational wealth.

Depressing as always.

Mr. Chetty also promotes a big data website on economic inequality called

Equality of Opportunity

A nice safe name to be sure. I guess "Reparation Now" or "Welfare for the Undeserving" were taken.






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