Blacks—Up Against Structural Inequities

Since World War II there has been no significant change in the employment probabilities of both blacks and whites. In both good times and bad, black unemployment rates are approximately twice as high as those of whites. This was true prior to the civil rights movement and antipoverty programs of the 1960s and is true now. For example, for the period 1950-59 the ratio of unemployed blacks to whites was 2.0, for 1960-69 it was 2.1, and for 1970-74 it was 1.9. The same relationship has held as unemployment escalates: month by month black unemployment has held constant at twice that of whites.

While the current relative employment probabilities of blacks are no worse than they have been since World War II, this does not minimize the p...