But has it not gotten dramatically worse in the last ten years due to so
called drug crimes? My last read on the situation was an incredible 1 out
of 3 Afro American men are incarcerated, on parole or on probation.
33% is a significant chunk of any population.
I don't claim that I've researched this, we are all just spitting in the
wind here, but the sentencing has gone up during the same time frame of
Doug's inquiry and no other intervening factor of such breadth came to my
mind. Industrial work is leaving the country, the last hired first fired
rule of senority would not increase employment in a shrinking sector for
the bottom of the senority list. I can't for the life of me believe that
industrial jobs could be accountable for such a shift.
If as I suggest these are the gents most likely to be unemployed clearing
them from you stats would indeed paint a rosier picture of those who are
left in your pool of consideration.
>Yes, black males are imprisoned in much greater proportions than whites.
>But this has always been the case. So, while imprisonment rates have
>increased for both blacks and whites, and for blacks relative to whites,
>I don't think the portion of the increase in the black incarceration
>rate is large enough to make the labor scarcity argument work. In
>addition, the average time served over all crimes, excluding life or
>more sentences) is about 2.6 years.
What is the date on that 2.6 year statistic? Mandatory sentencing is far
longer than 2.6 for crack the cocaine style used in non-white communities.
Not the type of statistics
>population trends are built upon. Sectoral shifts in hiring, firing, and
>wage payments, and social spending cutbacks, may express themselves
>through changes in relative household incomes between and within
>racial/ethnic categories much like an aging population would tend to
>shift the homicide rate downward. Why all income quintiles are growing
>among black households, as Doug noted, implies that blacks at the high
>end of the income distribution may be benefitting from the larger trends
>in the widening of income distribution (excluding existing wealth), and
>the lower quintiles may also be rising because of sectoral shifts toward
>industries and occupations that are more highly represented by blacks.
>The declingin social safety nets may be pushing proportionally more
>minorities into the paid labor market. Of course, increasing earnings
>among former social support recipients doesn't mean they are monetarily
>better off.
And would not the social support gang, like the incarcerated not have shown
up on Doug's BLS statistics in the first place?
Its a puzzle to me. ellen
>
>Jeff Fellows
>
> ----------
>From: Gerald Levy
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: [PEN-L] Re: income & race
>Date: Sunday, November 02, 1997 4:52PM
>
>Ellen (anzalone/starbird) wrote:
>
>> Is it true that inmates incarcerated in prison are NOT counted as
>> households in your data?
>
>To be counted as being employed or unemployed in the US data, one must
>first be counted as being part of the labor force. But, the labor force
>is
>defined in such a way that if you are not "working for pay", then you
>must
>be "actively seeking paid employment." Since prisoners are not "actively
>seeking paid employment", they are not counted as being part of the
>labor
>force or the unemployed. Aren't bourgeois statistics beautiful?
>
>> The white poor are still with us, but the Black poor are in the
>slammer.
>
>Huh? You don't actually believe that a majority of "Black poor are in
>the
>slammer", do you?
>
>> , the (free) Blacks are (statistically) thriving
>> economically under the Reagan-Bush-Clinton administrations.
>
>Huh? In what sense did "(free) Blacks" thrive since 1980?
>
>Jerry
