5 ms·

What's even more interesting is that changing your race to Hispanic has an almost identically positive impact as changing to white. Are we actually that much m

What's even more interesting is that changing your race to Hispanic has an almost identically positive impact as changing to white. Are we actually that much more discriminatory (as a society) against blacks as compared to hispanics? Is this purely racism, or is something else at work? Perhaps it has to do with the ratio of passport/green card holders between the two ethnicities, and the economic advantages of hiring non-citizens in low-end jobs? The results are clear though: White men 15-24, no highschool: Unemployment 25.6% Black men 15-24, no highschool: Unemployment 48.5% Hispanic men 15-24, no highschool: Unemployment 25.8%

MaysonL 17y ago
For women: White 15-24, no HS: 20.1%, Black: 36.8%, Hispanic: 29.9%
dantheman 17y ago
I wouldn't jump to racism right away, the system doesn't break down the numbers by locations. For instance rural people with no degrees may have an easier time finding jobs, whereas those in a city may not. I don't know the breakdown of rural hispanic, white, black, to the city but that might be able to explain it.
hristov 17y ago
I think you are right that the difference is immigration. A lot of hispanics at that age range and with no high school education are migratory farm workers that come to the US with jobs. Bad jobs but nevertheless jobs. And of course nobody will hire black people for those jobs. Those jobs are so hard and badly paid that they can only be performed by impoverished scared immigrants. And as far as racism goes I think there is a difference between the way hispanic and black men are treated. Racists usually fear young black men and consider them all violent criminals, so they would not give them jobs. As far as hispanics, the usual racist stereotype of the hispanic male is somebody that is good for a low wage menial job. So racism does not really prevent hispanics from getting jobs, just good jobs.
- 979s 17y ago
  I would wonder if there is a fear of hiring black men for extremely poor paying manual labour jobs for fear of the perception of slavery & racisim too.
  - dschobel 17y ago
    I think fear of litigation is probably a significant factor. I have a friend who practices labor and employment law and he's kept on retainer at a few big companies to field calls such as "can we fire this person and not get sued?". They literally have a point system. Race, sex, sexual preference and disabilities (basically any protected class) are all assigned a certain number of points. Regardless if you're trying to fire someone for cause, if they are in some dangerous combination of protected classes (watch out for disabled black lesbians) and you want to minimize legal exposure, they'll advise you to keep them and put them in a position where they can do no harm to company. He has one firm who has an employee who has sued them five (!) separate times for racial discrimination (according to my friend, anytime the person gets a bad review or reprimanded). They can't get rid of the person for fear it'll look like retaliation. The whole situation is completely degenerate.
    - yummyfajitas 17y ago
      Sounds like a good reason for even a non-racist to avoid hiring minorities and other protected classes.
      - jerf 17y ago
        Actually, that's a generalized problem with firing protections of any kind; the harder you make it to fire anyone, the less likely they are to be hired in the first place. Another case where second-order effects can end up dominating the end results. "At-will employment" sounds like a worker disaster if you only consider first-order effects, but in my opinion it is actually the preferable scenario for a worker if you consider everything. Well, for a good worker anyhow.
natmaster 17y ago
Am I the only one who thinks breaking this down by race is misleading? Why don't they have it broken down into industry? Saying this is due to racism is a huge leap from the correlation here. A more apt comparison would be people with the exact same skills and background applying for very similar jobs. Well, I guess that would be too hard. Let's stick to dividing everyone into little groups to make this easier for our brains.
- DougBTX 17y ago
  Am I the only one who thinks breaking this down by race is misleading? No more misleading than breaking it down by age. A more apt comparison would be people with the exact same skills and background applying for very similar jobs. That just hides all the people who would never get the skills or background to apply for those jobs because of their race. These statistics are profiling a society, not judging whether a particular interviewer has bias.
  - gaius 17y ago
    Age in this case is just a proxy for year of graduation.
- bigsassy 17y ago
  I know what you mean. A black colleague of mine was recently let go from my company and he found new employment pretty quickly. I wonder, if you graphed unemployment for developers would there be such a large difference between blacks and the other races?
wheels 17y ago
I assume that the dominant factors are socio-economic rather than racial. The poverty rate for black americans is three times that what it is for white americans. I suspect if the unemployment rates were broken down by most recent household income that the correlation between race and unemployment would be much weaker than the correlation between previous economic status and unemployment. In other words, I expect that the unemployment rate for the black middle class isn't a whole lot higher than for the white middle class. How to grow larger minority middle-classes is a much deeper societal problem and is much less subject to relatively instantaneous fluctuations like unemployment rates.
- encoderer 17y ago
  That's exactly correct. I had a nice chat about this with my gf recently... her mom is the traditional "southern woman" aka "socially acceptable racist." (her words, not mine. 'I'm just a 'southern girl' i can't help it) So I shared an insight with her that I'm not certain of but that makes sense to me: Since Nixon, income growth in inflation-adjusted dollars for the average American has actually fallen. From something like $46k median income in 1970 compared to $44k today. Anybody who grew up in the less affluent suburbs knows this just in their families and neighbors. The real prosperty that actually created the middle class in this country--the real upward mobility--that happened between 1945 and 1965. And it just so happens that while that was happening, most white Americans still treated blacks like 2nd class humans (at worst) and 2nd class citizens (at best). They missed out on the last big push of economic mobility. Lets hope that we all get a 2nd one in our lifetimes.
  - silentbicycle 17y ago
    While this is a very large and complex issue, one of the major forces in that "big push" was veterans taking advantage of the GI Bill. Black veterans had a much harder time using its benefits, though - most universities were still segregated, for example.

MaysonL 17y ago

For women: White 15-24, no HS: 20.1%, Black: 36.8%, Hispanic: 29.9%

dantheman 17y ago

I wouldn't jump to racism right away, the system doesn't break down the numbers by locations. For instance rural people with no degrees may have an easier time finding jobs, whereas those in a city may not. I don't know the breakdown of rural hispanic, white, black, to the city but that might be able to explain it.

hristov 17y ago

I think you are right that the difference is immigration. A lot of hispanics at that age range and with no high school education are migratory farm workers that come to the US with jobs. Bad jobs but nevertheless jobs. And of course nobody will hire black people for those jobs. Those jobs are so hard and badly paid that they can only be performed by impoverished scared immigrants. And as far as racism goes I think there is a difference between the way hispanic and black men are treated. Racists usually fear young black men and consider them all violent criminals, so they would not give them jobs. As far as hispanics, the usual racist stereotype of the hispanic male is somebody that is good for a low wage menial job. So racism does not really prevent hispanics from getting jobs, just good jobs.

979s 17y ago
I would wonder if there is a fear of hiring black men for extremely poor paying manual labour jobs for fear of the perception of slavery & racisim too.
- dschobel 17y ago
  I think fear of litigation is probably a significant factor. I have a friend who practices labor and employment law and he's kept on retainer at a few big companies to field calls such as "can we fire this person and not get sued?". They literally have a point system. Race, sex, sexual preference and disabilities (basically any protected class) are all assigned a certain number of points. Regardless if you're trying to fire someone for cause, if they are in some dangerous combination of protected classes (watch out for disabled black lesbians) and you want to minimize legal exposure, they'll advise you to keep them and put them in a position where they can do no harm to company. He has one firm who has an employee who has sued them five (!) separate times for racial discrimination (according to my friend, anytime the person gets a bad review or reprimanded). They can't get rid of the person for fear it'll look like retaliation. The whole situation is completely degenerate.
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    Sounds like a good reason for even a non-racist to avoid hiring minorities and other protected classes.
    - jerf 17y ago
      Actually, that's a generalized problem with firing protections of any kind; the harder you make it to fire anyone, the less likely they are to be hired in the first place. Another case where second-order effects can end up dominating the end results. "At-will employment" sounds like a worker disaster if you only consider first-order effects, but in my opinion it is actually the preferable scenario for a worker if you consider everything. Well, for a good worker anyhow.

natmaster 17y ago

Am I the only one who thinks breaking this down by race is misleading? Why don't they have it broken down into industry? Saying this is due to racism is a huge leap from the correlation here. A more apt comparison would be people with the exact same skills and background applying for very similar jobs. Well, I guess that would be too hard. Let's stick to dividing everyone into little groups to make this easier for our brains.

DougBTX 17y ago
Am I the only one who thinks breaking this down by race is misleading? No more misleading than breaking it down by age. A more apt comparison would be people with the exact same skills and background applying for very similar jobs. That just hides all the people who would never get the skills or background to apply for those jobs because of their race. These statistics are profiling a society, not judging whether a particular interviewer has bias.
- gaius 17y ago
  Age in this case is just a proxy for year of graduation.
bigsassy 17y ago
I know what you mean. A black colleague of mine was recently let go from my company and he found new employment pretty quickly. I wonder, if you graphed unemployment for developers would there be such a large difference between blacks and the other races?

wheels 17y ago

I assume that the dominant factors are socio-economic rather than racial. The poverty rate for black americans is three times that what it is for white americans. I suspect if the unemployment rates were broken down by most recent household income that the correlation between race and unemployment would be much weaker than the correlation between previous economic status and unemployment. In other words, I expect that the unemployment rate for the black middle class isn't a whole lot higher than for the white middle class. How to grow larger minority middle-classes is a much deeper societal problem and is much less subject to relatively instantaneous fluctuations like unemployment rates.

encoderer 17y ago
That's exactly correct. I had a nice chat about this with my gf recently... her mom is the traditional "southern woman" aka "socially acceptable racist." (her words, not mine. 'I'm just a 'southern girl' i can't help it) So I shared an insight with her that I'm not certain of but that makes sense to me: Since Nixon, income growth in inflation-adjusted dollars for the average American has actually fallen. From something like $46k median income in 1970 compared to $44k today. Anybody who grew up in the less affluent suburbs knows this just in their families and neighbors. The real prosperty that actually created the middle class in this country--the real upward mobility--that happened between 1945 and 1965. And it just so happens that while that was happening, most white Americans still treated blacks like 2nd class humans (at worst) and 2nd class citizens (at best). They missed out on the last big push of economic mobility. Lets hope that we all get a 2nd one in our lifetimes.
- silentbicycle 17y ago
  While this is a very large and complex issue, one of the major forces in that "big push" was veterans taking advantage of the GI Bill. Black veterans had a much harder time using its benefits, though - most universities were still segregated, for example.