By Freddie Allen
Senior Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON (NNPA)
– The
lack unemployment rate fell to
ingle digits (9.6 percent) in April,
or the first time since President
Barack Obama was elected in
2008.
Despite the improvement, the
Black jobless rate is still double the
unemployment rate of white work-
ers, which has remained flat since
February at 4.7 percent.
Valerie Wilson, the director of the
Program on Race, Ethnicity, and
the Economy at the Economic
Policy Institute, a progressive
think tank focused on low- and
middle-income families, said that
said that the gradual decline in the
Black unemployment rate is the
result of strong job growth over the
past year.
As the economic recovery in the
United States continued its slow,
uneven climb in April there were
still clear disparities, even among
adult Black workers.
Wilson said that, since Dec-
ember, Black men have enjoyed
most of the larger employment
gains compared to Black women.
The unemployment rate for
Black men over 20 years old was
11 percent in December 2014 and
9.2 percent in April 2015, while the
unemployment rate for Black
women increased 0.6 percent over
the same period.
Since last April, the labor force
participation rate, which is the
share of the population that is
either employed or looking for
work, increased from 66.5 percent
to 68.7 percent in April 2015
among Black men. The labor force
rate for Black women only
increased 0.7 percent since April
2014.
Wilson said that a renewed focus
on targeted jobs programs and
B
USINESS
S
COPE
Page 11
THE LOUISIANA WEEKLY
-
YOUR MULTICULTURAL MEDIUM
May 18 - May 24, 2015
Black unemployment dips below 10 percent
High unemployment and low wages in
the Black community affect everything
Feds close insurance loopholes
n preventive care
PUBLIC NOTICE
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community stakeholders to attend a public hearing on Thursday, June 9, 2015 to
review and provide comments on the following draft plans:
• The Public Housing Agency (PHA) 5-Year Plan for HANO’s
Fiscal Years 2016 – 2020; and the PHA Annual Plan for
HANO’s Fiscal Year 2016.
• The Capital Fund Program (CFP) Five-Year Action Plan
for Federal Fiscal Years 2015 – 2019. In compliance with
the Public Housing Capital Fund Program Final Rule, HANO’s
CFP Plan has been decoupled from the PHA Plan and will
be separately transmitted to the U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development.
HANO’s draft plans and related documents are posted on the Agency’s website at
and are available for review and comment from April 24, 2015
through June 9, 2015 during weekday hours of 8:00 am − 5:00 pm at the HANO
Central Offices, 4100 Touro St. and 2051 Senate St. entrances, New Orleans, LA
70122.
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TUESDAY, JUNE 9, 2015
6:00 P.M.
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OR SUBMITTED IN WRITING TO:
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c/o Strategic Planning Department
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you have a reasonable accommodation request relative to attending the
public hearing, please notify our Client Services Department at (504) 670-
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The Louisiana Weekly: April 27, May 18 & June 8, 2015
Valerie Wilson, the director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy at the Economic Policy
Institute (EPI) speaks jobs and the economy in the Black community during an event at EPI.
(Freddie Allen/NNPA News Wire)
unemployment rate in the country,
it is still over one percentage poin
above the highest white unemploy
ment rate (Tennessee). Virgini
was one of only eight states wher
the African-American unemploy
ment rate was below 10 percent i
the first quarter of 2015.”
Wilson’s research also reveale
that the Black unemployment rate
“is at or below its pre-recessio
level in six states: Connecticut
Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri
Ohio, and Tennessee. But thi
numerical recovery must be put i
proper context because each o
these states also had Black unem
ployment rates that were amon
the highest in the nation before th
recession.”
The national unemployment rat
was 5.4 percent in April dow
from 5.5 percent in March and th
economy added 223,000 jobs i
April for a three-month average o
191,000 jobs per month.
In a recent blog post for EPI, Jos
Bivens, the research and polic
director at EPI, wrote that return
ing the labor market to pre-Grea
Recession levels is too unambi
tious a goal.
“After all, 2007 could hardly b
described as a year with the kind o
high-pressure labor market tha
would boost wages across th
board,” said Bivens.
Bivens continued: “Instead, w
need to target the kind of high
pressure labor market that w
haven’t seen since the lat
1990s. Anything less than thi
will leave the majority o
American workers frozen out o
sharing in economic growt
through wage gains.”
Follow Freddie Allen on Twitter a
@freddieallenjr.
◊
infrastructure investments would
enable the economy to get closer to
full employment, but cuts to public
sector employment, especially at
the state and local levels, may pro-
long the sluggish recovery.
According to the Center on
Budget and Policy Priorities, a
nonpartisan research and policy
group that designs policies aimed
at reducing poverty and inequality,
the economy has shed nearly
570,000 government jobs, more
than 360,000 jobs in local govern-
ment alone, since February 2010.
“The other part of that is that
wage growth isn’t anything to
cheer about,” said Wilson, adding
that wage growth is still below any
indication that the economy has
really heated up.
According to the Labor Depart-
ment, average hourly earnings
have only increased 2.2 percent
since April 2014.
During recoveries in the past,
falling unemployment rates
meant that companies were
forced to raise wages to compete
for available workers.
This recovery is different,
Wilson said, in part because
there’s still a decent amount of
slack in the labor market.
In a state-by-state analysis of the
unemployment rates, Wilson found
that the African American unem-
ployment rate was “lowest in Vir-
ginia (7.4 percent) and highest in
the District of Columbia (15.8 per-
cent) in the first quarter of 2015,
surpassing Michigan, which had
the highest Black unemployment
rate in the fourth quarter of 2014.”
Wilson also noted that, “although
7.4 percent is the lowest Black
By Frederick H. Lowe
Contributing Writer
(Special to the Trice Edney
News Wire from NorthStar-
NewsToday.com)
— Fifty years
after Title VII of the 1964 Civil
Rights Act overturned laws that
overtly restricted Blacks to a limit-
ed number of low-wage occupa-
tions, African Americans still suf-
fer from the affects of high unem-
ployment, low wages and limited
access to higher-paying jobs that
encourage marriage, better health
care, neighborhood safety and dis-
courage crime, according to a
report, titled #BlackWorkers-
Matter, issued this month.
Before Title VII, Blacks were
mostly limited to working as
domestics — maids, butlers — and
in agriculture as laborers.
Although Blacks today can be
found in a wide-variety of occupa-
tions, their numbers are small and
most African Americans are con-
signed to low-wage jobs, making it
difficult for them to marry and sup-
port a family.
The report takes its title from the
popular #BlackLivesMatter, which
was established after an unarmed
Trayvon Martin was killed by
George Zimmerman, who was
later acquitted of Martin’s murder
by an all-women’s jury.
Algernon Austin, a Ph.D sociolo-
gist with the Insight Center for
Community
Economic
Development, which is based in
Oakland, California, said the lack
of jobs and low-wage jobs con-
tribute to crime, low rates of mar-
riage and health disparities in the
African-American community.
Austin areas of expertise are work-
force development and access to
jobs.
“The relative number of jobs
available to Blacks remains inade-
quate, even now, more than half a
century after the Civil Rights Act,”
Austin wrote in a chapter of
#BlackWorkersMatter, titled “The
Importance of Good Jobs to the
Social and Economic Health of
Black Communities.” “Since the
1960s, the Black unemployment
rates — the share of Blacks look-
ing for but unable to find it — has
ranged from two to 2.5 times the
rate for whites.”
Austin’s comments were con-
firmed by the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics’ April jobs report
released Friday.
The unemployment rate for
African Americans on a seasonally
adjusted basis was 9.6 percent,
compared to 4.4 percent for
Asians, 6.9 percent for Hispanics,
and 4.7 percent for whites.
The jobless rate for Black men 20
years old and older was 9.2 percent
in April, BLS reported. The unem-
ployment rate for African-
American women 20 years old was
8.8 percent. The jobless rate for
Black men and Black women 20
years older is higher than that of
any other racial or ethnic group.
The unemployment rate for white
women was 4.2 percent and for
white men the jobless rate was 4.4
percent.
During the recession, the unem-
ployment rate topped out at around
eight percent in 2010, but even
during the best economic times,
Black unemployment exceeds 8
percent, Austin wrote. Even with
anti-discrimination laws on the
books, employers still prefer to
hire white workers, he said.
Low wages is one of the major
issues crippling the Black com-
munity.
“African-American workers’
wages are on average lower than
white workers’ wages and the gap
is widening,” Austin wrote. “In
1989, the average white man with
only a high school education
earned $3.76 an hour more than the
average Black male high school
graduate. By 2011, this difference
had grown to $4.19 per hour. Black
workers are overrepresented
among workers earning the mini-
mum wage or less and more than a
third of Black workers do not earn
enough to lift a family of four out
of poverty.”
Austin also noted that Black
workers have also seen significant
declines in wages, an important
measure of job quality and the
Black and white wage gap has
been growing.
“Nearly all of the problems fac-
ing African-American communi-
ties are directly or indirectly the
result of the lack of jobs and low
wages among African Americans,”
Austin wrote.
#Blackworkerslivesmatter con-
tains four other articles: “Working
While Black: The State of the
Black Worker Organizing in the
U.S.,” “Gender and the Black Jobs
Crisis,” “Low-Wage Work in the
Black Community in the Age of
Inequality” and “Partnership
between the Labor Movement and
Black Voters: The Opportunities,
Challenges and Next Steps.”◊
(AP) — From contraception to
olonoscopies, the Obama admin-
stration Monday closed a series of
nsurance loopholes on coverage
f preventive care.
The department of Health and
uman Services said insurers must
over at least one birth control
ption under each of 18 methods
pproved by the FDA — without
opays.
Also, insurers can’t charge
atients for anesthesia services in
onnection with colonoscopies to
creen for cancer risk.
President Barack Obama’s health
are law requires most insurance
lans to cover preventive care at no
dditional charge to patients. That
ncludes employer plans serving
bout three in four workers.
The types of services covered gen-
rally dovetail with the recommen-
ations of a government advisory
anel. Also on the list are birth con-
rol pills and other contraceptives.
But independent experts and
omen’s groups had recently
found coverage gaps for some
birth control methods. Insurers
said they were trying to comply
with the law, but that federal rules
did not provide enough detail.
“This has been a problem for
women,” said Cindy Pearson,
executive director of the National
Women’s Health Network. “It
seems like some insurers were try-
ing to control costs under cover of
medical management.” Her organ-
ization advocates on reproductive
health and other issues.
Other services covered without
copays or cost-sharing include:
• Preventive screening, genetic
counseling and BRCA genetic test-
ing for women at increased risk for
having a potentially harmful muta-
tion in genes that suppress cancer-
ous tumors.
• Prenatal care and other servic-
es to promote healthy pregnancies.
The requirement applies to insur-
ance plans that cover children as
dependents.
• Certain preventive services
for transgender people. For exam-
ple, a mammogram for a transgen-
der man who has residual breast
tissue or an intact cervix.
On birth control, insurers will be
required to offer at least one no-
cost option in each FDA-approved
category. These include daily birth
control pills as well as longer-act-
ing hormonal patches and IUDs,
and the morning-after pill. The
option provided can be a generic,
but if a woman’s doctor says a
more expensive alternative is med-
ically necessary, the plan must
cover it without a copay.
Insurance billing is notorious for
breaking down procedures into dif-
ferent subcategories. The new
rules made it clear that patients
cannot be billed a copay for anes-
thesia during a colonoscopy.
“The plan or issuer may not
impose cost sharing with respect to
anesthesia services performed in
connection with the preventive
colonoscopy if the attending
provider determines that anesthe-
sia would be medically appropriate
for the individual,” HHS said in its
guidance document.◊
