D.C. Slow To Reduce Its Ranks Of Jobless: Boom Eludes Many Poor Neighborhoods
Monday, August 16, 2004 at 01:51AM
TheSpook
There are signs that the problem goes well beyond
employers discriminating against the overwhelmingly black residents of
some D.C. neighborhoods. Nationally, blacks have a higher rate of
joblessness than people of other races, 12 percent in July compared
with 5.7 percent across the nation as a whole. Experts attribute some
of that to racism. But many overwhelmingly African American
neighborhoods in the District have unemployment rates many times that
for blacks nationwide. The more substantial problem, Simpkins and
others who work with the unemployed said, is an entrenched culture in a
few District neighborhoods that has changed little in recent years.
Children grow up with friends, family and neighbors who don't work, and
thus they never learn how to apply for a job or plot a career. They
attend troubled public schools where they do not learn the basics. And
by the time they are adults, the routine of waking up early and showing
up at a job is foreign to them. More of the District's jobs are going
to people who live outside the city, according to the 2000 Census. In
1990, 67.6 percent of District jobs were held by residents of the
suburbs; by 2000, 71.6 percent were. [more ]
Article originally appeared on (http://brownwatch.com/).
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