The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

So all those factors, when you combine them and take a young black high school dropout, low-income male, you're talking 5 percent employment.
Paul Solman: 5 percent?
Andrew Sum: Yes.
Paul Solman: 95 percent unemployment rate?
Andrew Sum: Jobless. Not all of them would be classified as [unemployed], but they're not working. In other words, you could just say, "I gave up looking for work," which a lot of them do, but only 5 percent are working. Yes, 5 percent.

Another factor is geography. Last year, in the summer in [Washington,] D.C., only 15 percent of the kids worked; California, only 20 percent; Arizona and large parts of the south, 20 percent. Yet in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, you had 50 percent to 55 percent of those kids working.

This part is unclear to me. Is the "those kids" in the last section (about the geographic factor) still referring to the "young black highschool dropouts", or to a more general group again?

Re: The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

#7

Post by jlgreco » Sun, Jul 07, 2013, 11:34 PM UTC

bmmayer1 wrote: post #4

Minimum wage law.

Perhaps the labor law exceptions for farming jobs explain some of the geographic discrepancy.

When I was a teenager for a time I was (legally) employed below standard minimum wage working as a farm laborer.

Re: The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

#8

Post by npc » Sun, Jul 07, 2013, 11:35 PM UTC

bmmayer1 wrote: post #5

npc wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, just the people who decide who gets them: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873

Didn't Steve Levitt prove this wrong?

I don't know, did he? Here's some more if that didn't convince you (courtesy of Tim Wise: http://www.timwise.org/2010/07/black-powers-gonna-git-you-su...)

http://www.princeton.edu/~pager/race_at_work.pdf

http://www.eeo1.com/1999_NR/Title.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/us/01race.html?_r=2

Re: The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

#9

Post by kansface » Sun, Jul 07, 2013, 11:36 PM UTC

npc wrote: post #3

ukoto wrote: post #2

Jobs are racist.

No, just the people who decide who gets them: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873

This may be the case, but what should the job prospects for teenagers who just dropped out of high school be ideally?

Re: The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

#10

Post by recuter » Sun, Jul 07, 2013, 11:37 PM UTC

jlgreco wrote: post #6

So all those factors, when you combine them and take a young black high school dropout, low-income male, you're talking 5 percent employment. Paul Solman: 5 percent? Andrew Sum: Yes. Paul Solman: 95 percent unemployment rate? Andrew Sum: Jobless. Not all of them would be classified as [unemployed], but they're not working. In other words, you could just say, "I gave up looking for work," which a lot of them do, but o…

There are fewer young black people in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska which happen to have higher youth employment rates. So that partially accounts for it.

But still, 95 percent..