Rose Williams fared well financially for a while until the real estate boom turned into a bust.
The African-American woman had more than two decades of experience as an escrow officer and manager when she opened her own company in 2006, employing herself and five staffers.
Then the housing bubble burst, and Williams had to shut the business down. That meant a quick cut from an average income of approximately $20,000 to $25,000 a month to just a couple of thousand a month.
It also meant relying on friends and family to help out, according to Williams.
"I'm forced to live on absolutely nothing now," the Los Angeles County resident says. "...Some days it seems I just can't make it. You have to make do with what you have."
Since Williams' unemployment benefits have run out, she has recrafted her resume in search of work.
Williams and her husband, who's been unemployed for more than nine months, have cut back on expenses, especially household costs, she said. To help save money, she unplugs all electronics when they are not in use. The couple has stopped eating at restaurants, and they share one car with family members.
With Labor Day approaching on Sept. 6, plenty of statistical data show that Williams is not alone. Blacks continue to face the highest unemployment rates among the local and national population. Indeed, many African Americans might not feel much like celebrating Labor Day as they look at recent U.S. Department of Labor figures that show a 16.3% jobless rate for the community in August, which jumped from 15.6% in July. That compares to a rate of 7.2% for Asians, 8.7% for Whites, and 12% for Hispanics.
The federal government has offered some help with its stimulation program and other measures, and the Obama administration is working on other tools to curb overall joblessness, but some believe that it will do little to help Blacks survive.
Talmadge Talib, a car salesman for 25 years, says that he knew things were bad when the usual seasonal car sales slowed and came to a near-halt. He says that conditions had been consistently bad for about four years before the downturn actually struck and made matters even worse.
To get by, Talib has worked independently, buying and selling reconditioned cars. But he says those efforts have barely helped him to stay afloat. He says that, more recently, his usual annual income of $60,000 to $100,000 had been cut by about less than half. Talib adds that he drew unemployment, but that didn't even meet his basic needs.
"It's not enough money to live on," he said. "You can't survive on unemployment because it barely pays the bills and it doesn't even do that, for the most part.
"You're still borrowing from friends and family to get along. I couldn't imagine having a family to support based on the situation that I'm in now."
According to Greg Akili, a longtime labor activist and field organizer for Region 1 of the NAACP, it is not unusual for unemployment rates among Blacks to be three to four times more than their White counterparts.
Meanwhile, both Williams and Talib said that Republican members of the U.S. Congress made their struggles worse by moving block unemployment insurance benefit extensions earlier this year, which delayed the action.
Akili agrees — and he says the Republicans played politics on the matter.
"Certain right-wing politicians have decided to make and draw out these issues because they think it plays into their interests if people are discouraged, fearful, anxious," Akili says. "Then they can point to, 'See, that's what's wrong with society.' ... Eventually they voted for it, but they held it up for three months."
"I think that we have got to fight to send a message that we care about people who are unemployed, that we will do whatever we can to help create jobs both through the private and public sector or using public-sector investments to do that," he adds.
Akili also points to an obvious way to reduce unemployment among African Americans: Black-owned businesses should hire them, he says.
He acknowledges that some Black-owned businesses have sought the financial advantages of a cheap labor pool while complaining about the undocumented-immigrant population in America. But they cannot have it both ways, he says.
Akili and many others are pinning their hopes of drawing more attention to the current difficulties facing members of the African-American community and others on an Oct. 2 gathering of One Nation Working Together. The organization represents a movement of human and civil rights organizations, labor and other human rights groups, and plans to march in Washington, D.C., with calls for jobs, quality education, and justice for all.
"We want the change we voted for in 2008," Akili says, "and we want those people who have been opposing it and obstructing it to understand [that] if we're one nation, then we need to work together and focus on how do we create jobs and help those people get jobs who need them."
Meanwhile, on a local level, the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center in the Watts district of Los Angeles, along with other education and work source centers, provide a hand for anyone looking to break the cycle of unemployment.
The center was originally named the Watts Skills Center, created after the 1965 Watts Rebellion, according to Janet Clark, the center's principal.
The center's state-of-the-art facility is equipped with classrooms for training in vocations and professions such as nursing, automotive repair, construction, welding, fashion design and ESL (English as a Second Language) classes.
"Most appropriately, the center is important in a depression/recession, in a community where everything unhealthy, unhappy, is renowned internationally," Clark says.
Clark says the center also works with individuals with criminal records as part of a re-entry program to get people on track to education and employment.
Most of the center's certified nursing assistant students go to work for a registry, are already taking care of a loved one, or join a local union and make at least $9 an hour through a state program.
In addition, Clark says that all of the center's 25 automotive students are working part time at local facilities. And through the center's construction pre-apprenticeship training program, students are eligible for local hiring. If students pass union tests, they receive preference for local hiring.
"Despite the numbers of unemployment among our people, there's hope," Clark says. "When you come inside the gate, it's up to you to roll up your own sleeves and decide for yourself. You're ready to become whatever you're capable of becoming. It is our job to facilitate your knowing what it is you do best, and helping you to get the skills necessary to do it."
The only requirement one needs to attend the center is desire, according to Clark.
"Black people have always suffered unemployment," she says. "We've just had to stretch a little more beans and rice, but we've never jumped out of windows. Some of these students are living in multi-generational poverty, but they still have the spirit to prevail. All we have to do is get them to redirect their anger."
Charlene Muhammad is a writer for the L.A. Watts Times.
Graphic from L.A. Watts Times.
Read more stories from the L.A. Watts Times »
Leave a comment