Immigration not to blame for high unemployment among blacks

Immigration moderately impacts the employment of young black men, according to the presentation presented to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. At the Economic Effect of Immigration on Black Workers briefing, Dr. Gordon Hanson, Professor of Economics UCSD, said that in 1960, 75% of black men were unemployed, versus 68% unemployment in the year 2000. The decline is accompanied by a rapid increase in incarceration, and he would expect any increase of immigration to impact blacks more because they have less education.

Dr. Gerald D. Jaynes, Professor of Economics and African-American Studies at Yale University, said that data forced him to conclude that negative effects of immigration on the employment of blacks were mostly absent and modest at worst for only a segment of lowest skilled workers. More so than immigration, having a significant minority of disadvantaged young people persisting in low educational achievement, dropping out of high school, and engaging in criminal activity are likely to blame for low employment rates.

Dr. Vernon Briggs, Emeritus Professor of Labor Economics at Cornell University, disagreed. Immigrants, he said, take low skilled jobs from native born blacks, and an enormous amount of those immigrants are illegal. A major problem is that a high skilled person can take a low skilled job, but it doesn't work the other way around. In competition for employment, illegal immigrants are likely to be hired because they can be paid less.

Overall, there are negative effects on the employment of blacks by immigration, but the effects are not major, Dr. Harry Holzer said, Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University. People do seem to prefer immigrants to native born blacks, he said, but part of that may be that blacks don't appear to be interested in working certain jobs, such as jobs in agriculture. The solution, he said, has six parts. We must improve education, enhance youth mentoring, improve occupational training, reduce incarceration rates (and the barriers to work faced by ex-offenders), extend the Earned Income Tax Credit to childless adults including non-custodial fathers, and lastly reform child support regulations.

The general consensus in the room was that although immigration does have some impact, lack of education and skills are the main problem causing unemployment in young black men.

Supreme Court Justices express concern about education, cameras in the Court, and judicial pay

Justices Kennedy and Thomas appeared. Justice Thomas, as he does in oral arguments at the Court, spoke only when directly addressed.

Chairman Serrano (D-NY) opened the hearing by talking about the awkwardness of calling a co-equal branch of government before a committee to ask it to justify its budget request. He also several times joking asked if the Supreme Court could rule whether people born in Puerto Rico were eligible to the presidency (to which Justice Kennedy joking responded that they were certainly eligible to be Supreme Court Justices).

Much of the hearing focused on the Supreme Court building modernization project, which is currently expected to be completed 16 months after the original projected completion date of May 2008. Justice Kennedy, appearing a bit uncomfortable and at one point jokingly saying, "please do I have to talk about this?" discussed the reasons for the overrun and pointed out that the project was still on budget.

Other topics included judicial pay increases (the Justices agreed that it didn't make sense to pay judges less than a first-year associate), education of young people on American history (Justice Kennedy expressed concern that youth are not taught enough about American history and principles, and "you cannot defend what you cannot know"), and cameras in the courtroom (the Justices agreed they would not help anything and presented risks of personality overtaking issues in coverage).

Senate Committee discussess employment at hearing

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee held a hearing today to discuss “Unemployment in a Volatile Economy: How to Secure Families and Build Opportunity.”

Chairman of the committee Edward Kennedy (D-MA) spoke briefly to say that his committee cares about fellow human beings and is concerned about rising unemployment, the lack of jobs, and what happens to people when they lose jobs. He said that the country's unemployed have been looking for work longer than in any period in recent times.

Ranking member Mike Enzi (R-WY) said that the administration must ensure that workers and students are provided the resources needed in order to live lives without severe financial troubles. He stressed the importance of improving k-12 education where, he said, 7,000 students drop out every day. He talked about a Tennessee high school principal who set up a successful institute to inspire students to pursue higher education and help curb the dropout rate. He said that high schools are only graduating about 70% of their students each year and unless that rate improves, the nation will lose $3 trillion in unearned income. He concluded by saying that a large number of those who graduated high school still have not met the educational requirements to pursue higher education or work and said that there is a need to put a system in place for longterm education, training and retraining.

The New York State commissioner of the Department of Labor Patricia Smith told the committee that her city's rate of longterm unemployment rate is higher than it has been in recent times and that the rate is expected to continue rising. She said that youth unemployment is the highest of all age groups as nd urged Congress to modernize the unemployment system by closing gaps. She complained of the long time period that workers must wait to access their benefits and said that she agree with Pres. Bush's FY2009 budget which calls for reduced funding and services for employment.

Princeton University professor of Economics Alan Krueger cited a rise in the unemployment rate from 4.4% in March 2007 to 4.9% as of January 2008. He said that the average duration of unemployment for an unemployed worker was 12.7 weeks in January 2001. Today, he said, the average duration has climbed to 17.5 weeks. He said that polls conducted reveal that both low and high-income Americans feel that it is currently a bad time to find a job and said that losing a job often has a “scarring effect” on workers, even after they find a new job. Krueger also said that it was “unfortunate” that Bush's new budget calls to eliminate funding for research projects to study the employment and economic situation.