An analysis of labor statistics by the Economic Policy Institute reveals the unemployment rate for African Americans residing in the St. Louis metropolitan area was the third worst in the nation in 2009.
Joblessness last year among African Americans in a region that encompasses the outlying counties as well as Metro East stood at 16.9 percent. Only blacks seeking employment in Detroit (20.9 percent) and Minneapolis (20.4 percent) had it worse.
Claude Brown, the president of the St. Louis chapter of the NAACP, said culpability lies with the St. Louis Public Schools and other failing districts in the county and Metro East.
“In addition to companies hiring people they know first, which is pretty much whites, this mostly has to do with an educational system that is not doing justice to young African Americans,” Brown said.
“We can put a minimal amount of blame on people for not hiring minorities. But most of the blame has to go to the educational system. And that blame falls on all of us.”
Locally, the white unemployment rate in 2009 was 8.4 percent. Overall, a 9.9 percent jobless rate placed St. Louis 17th last year among the 50 largest metropolitan regions in the nation.
Whites comprise 79 percent, African Americans 17 percent and Hispanics two percent of the area’s workforce, according to the EPI.
Minority unemployment is not factored into the monthly and annual jobless data compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In the report issued Tuesday morning — “Uneven pain – Unemployment by metropolitan area and race” — EPI analysts applied “unemployment ratios” to shed a light on the racial and ethnic “disparities” in the nation’s jobless rate.
The representative from the NAACP blames failed educational systems as the reason for the pain of unemployment within the Black community.
I am less impressed by someone being able to notate A problem than I am with their actions following through with the problem as the threat that they claim that it is.
The truth is that the St Louis school board, from my previous research, if full of "favorable people". The people of St Louis got the people into power that they have desired. In as much as they were not primarily focused on the effective results - they have done everything necessary to deliver the outcomes that they are now grieving about.
As the SLPS is a large urban district, it has had problems stemming from poverty among a huge amount of its students, including violence, dropouts, and low test scores.
On March 23, 2007, the Missouri State Board of Education chose to strip the St. Louis Public Schools of their accreditation and to take over their management. The vote came after and in spite of strong public opposition. Under the board's decision, a three-person board, called the "Special Advisory Board" or "SAB", was created. The three members are nominated one each by the Governor (subject to Missouri Senate confirmation), the Mayor of St. Louis (no confirmation required), and by the President of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen (no confirmation required). The locally elected board will remain in place but have no power, however, local board elections will continue as required by Missouri law.[1] The SAB is due to expire in 2011, wherein power will return to the elected board.
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