J. Bruce Llewellyn Dies

I was pretty young when I was inspired by J. Bruce Llewellyn who ran the coke-cola bottling operation in Philadelphia.

J. Bruce Llewellyn Dies

Another neighbor lost his job

It is kind of funny when they talk about the recession. It is really a recession among the middle and even the upper middle class. This time the recession has reached a little higher.

My neighbor, the real estate lawyer, lost his job. He used to do locations for large big box retailers: sporting goods stores, toys, outlets, retailers, and new specialty retailers. Now he got cut. Another neighbor across the street used to marketing and advertising and now he drives a limo to the airport. Both are set since their wives work and the house is almost payed for but I can see loss of pride.

Both will be fine in the long run, but short term they have to cut back. The kids will get collage but not ivy league. No more eating out or movies. But I can see the psychological blow taking it toll. One guy has not hair and the other is prematurely grey. Well good luck to both.

V2

Were back !!!

We Are Back

It has been a tough month and a half with the new job, travel, kids, volunteer job and other stuff going on. I have been working about 65 hours a week for three week. It has been crazy.

But we are back and dedicated to bring you the best blogging on Black Economics. Whether is Obama's latest, BLS new reports, key people, wealth management, consumer trends or other interesting topics we will be covering it. We will have more links, more analysis and more explaining what the heck is going on. The focus will be the same: bridging the gap between complicated real life economics, complex economic theory and every day life for Blacks in the US.

All the best

Chris

Less stimulus for minority firms

Quick repost of AP article referenced on "The Root".

STIMULUS WATCH: Less stimulus for minority firms

cryptological pioneers

Every now and then you find a Black site and you say what the heck; I didn't know they even had that. Here is one such site about the role of African American in the NSA.

http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/african_americans/index.shtml

I got a job

I now have a job so I guess I can remove the "unemployed" from the description of the blog. The job is with a computer consulting company doing support work for a large pharmaceutical company. One disappointing thing is that I am the only Black person and the only person on the team who did not grow up in India. There are no women on the team and few in the industry. The job pays a good amount of money, so I don't quite understand why the talent pool is so limited. I would think people would be busting down the door to do this kind of work.

I have a long commute so I get plenty of time to ponder the issues. Basically, I believe it boils down to backgound preparation and then job information and contacts. To do the job you need a computer background such as programming or business analysis. The Whites in the field typically have business knowledge and experience. They come from the business. While the Indians have studied computer since high school. There seems to be no capacity for business or education to develop people for these jobs in the US.

In terms of job information, I think the average person in the US is completely unaware of the computer systems that run large business and government institutions. Everything is invisible.

Job categories by race and gender

These graphs have some additional breakdowns of the categories. But the major trends are obvious. Educated professionals regardless of race, continue to do well. Asians have the highest percentage of professionals followed by Whites. Blacks and Hispanics, especially men, have a way below average number of professionals. The lack of professionals shows up in the high unemployment numbers during the current recession. Gender wise it also show the huge impact the recession is having on men.




The charts also show how Blacks and Hispanics are concentrated in service occupations which pay far less then professional occupations.




In the year-to-year delta graphs you can actually see the shrinking of manufacturing and constructions jobs.

Employment by Gender and Occupational Category

Here is a nice comparison of occupational where men work and women work. The following chart compares the occupations of men and women by race.





There are some notable features of the first chart. Women are almost nonexistent in the fields of farming, production and maintenance. Women dominate office support and sales occupations. Blacks are concentrated in transportation and material handling occupations while Hispanic men are prevalent in farming, construction and maintenance. Asian men are concentrated in the professional ranks. One can also see the large difference between Black and Hispanic men and White and Asian men in the management and professional category. Among women the differences are not so great.


The next chart shows differences by gender within th same race.



The chart show that the deficit of female workers in farming, production and maintenance is consistent across all races. Asians had the smallest difference between male and female occupations. Hispanics had the largest difference.




Managers and financial professionals still tend to be men but women are much more likely to be professionals and office workers. Men dominate construction, maintenance and repair and transportation and material handling occupations. Women have almost no presence in those categories.

Weekly Unemployment Claims Rise Slightly to 496,000 (SA)

Weekly seasonally adjusted unemployment claims rose 22,000 to 496,000 from the prior weeks figure of 474,000. The weekly claims figure has come down from a peak of 674,000 in March of 2009. It is approximately 200,000 higher than before the recession started. Weekly unemployment is a good indicator of the overall labor market in the US.



The second chart show the longer term trend with unemployment claims hovering around 300,000 during periods of expansion as compared to 500,000 currently.

"The Great Doubling:" New Global Labor Market v2

A huge increase workers is having a disastrous effect on US wages and jobs for low-skilled workers.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Institute for Research on Poverty had an interesting article about globalization's effect on US low wage workers. The article was written by Ricard B. Freeman. Freeman discusses' the global increase of workers from China, India and Russia. The number of workers available to global markets has increase from approximately 1.5 Billion to about 3 Billion. However, the capital available for production has stayed about the same. So the ratio of capital to labor per unit of output has fallen by 50%. This gives capital a tremendous advantage in the new global environment. Production can take place almost anywhere labor is cheap.

The entry of China and India into the global market place has also had a devastating impact on other low and medium wage countries. Countries that used to export to the US and EU are being replaced by China.

The author also defends Paul Samuelson's view that globalization may not always be good especially for low skilled workers. Mr. Samuelson had been attacked by some economists for "opposing" free trade. The author points out that China and India, besides just exporting low wage products, are also producing highly educated workforces to challenge high skilled products from the US and Europe. These new competitors are adding supply and competition, and reducing prices, profits and wages.

Mr. Freedman then highlight two scenarios the US could take given the effects of globalization.

One: China and India produce products at lower prices which increases global standards of living. The US retains some of it technological lead to continue to produce high valued products and services. A high world savings rate leads to an increase in the capital / labor ratio. The US puts some money into a stronger social safety net including healthcare to support high living standards for workers who's wages are limited by low-wage competition.

A second scenario is capital formation fails to match labor growth. The Chinese and Indian economies only benefit "elites" leading to instability. The US develops a backlash against globalization and limits free trade.

Professor Freeman proposes some solutions.
1) Continued investments in science, technology and education.
2) Continued immigration of scientists and engineers.
3) Government support for low wage workers such as:
Earned Income Tax Credit
Higher wages and higher minimum wage
Support for unions and collective bargining
Profit sharing with employees
4) Support for government programs such as healthcare which reduce the cost to hire new employees

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A huge increase workers is having a disastrous effect on US wages and jobs for low-skilled workers.

You can read the report here.