Women and Minorities Hardest Hit Again

There is a long running joke that the final New York Times headline will be, “World Ends! Women and Minorities Hit Hardest.” For now, we have this December 30, NYT Front Page update: “Black Workers In Auto Plants Losing Ground.”

Apparently, it’s one thing for the CEO’s of the Big Three automakers to appear on Capital Hill telling Congress that they wont make it another thirty days (putting one in ten US jobs at risk) if they don’t get an immediate eleven-figure handout; but its an entirely different thing when the New York Times notices that Black auto workers are “losing ground.” We haven’t seen something this big since the Chicago Tribune noticed that some of the 600 locations being closed by Starbucks were in heavily minority neighborhoods

The Times gets right to work laying out the data. “By last month, nearly 20,000 African-American auto workers had lost jobs, a 13.9 percent decline in employment, since the recession began last December, according to government jobs data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal Washington research firm.”

How does this compare to the loss of jobs by other groups over the same period? No comment. That's the kind of thing conservative research firms probably specialize in. Instead, we get this inane comparison; “[The 13.9% decline in employment by Black autoworkers] compares with a 4.4 percent decline for all workers in manufacturing.” It “compares” only if you are trying to mislead the reader. What possible relevance is a comparison of the decline of Black autoworkers to the decline of all workers in all manufacturing?

“As with most recessions, African Americans have been hit harder by this recession than other workers. The overall unemployment rate for blacks increased to 11.2 percent in November, an increase of 2.8 percentage points over last year. By comparison, national unemployment last month was 6.7 percent, up two percentage points from a year ago."

Yes, that’s one comparison. Here’s another comparison: Black unemployment has gone from 92 per thousand to 112 per thousand, a relative increase of 21.74%. All other unemployment has gone from 47 per thousand to 67 per thousand, a relative increase of 42.55%. Put more simply, for every five workers who were unemployed a year ago, there are now seven; but for every five Black workers who were unemployed a year ago, there are now six. Who is being hit harder during this recession?

“About 150 of the nations 2,000 minority dealerships have closed this year, and 300 could shut by the middle of January.” So now, the proxy for measuring the impact on Blacks is the impact on minorities? Blacks. Minorities. Whatever. This year, 7.5% of minority dealerships have closed. If you're reading the New York Times, you know better than to bother asking how non-minority dealerships have fared.

Survivor: Detroit (December, 20 NY Times Editorial)

“It came as a relief that President Bush was willing to break free of ideology long enough to keep General Motors and Chrysler from collapsing into a pile of rubble on his watch.” (Apparently important things only happen under the president's watch, never congress'.)

The New York Times does not elaborate on exactly what ideology the president broke free of. Perhaps it was that pesky constitutional ideology that restricts spending decisons to congress.

The House went through the exercise of passing a spending bill to bail out the auto industry. The Senate went through a similar effort and voted against its bill. For those of us into the whole constitutional ideology thing (e.g., the New York Times, when it comes to, say, warrantless wiretaps) this would seem to suggest that Detroit would not get taxpayer money, since both houses of congress did not sign off on a final spending bill.

But apparently this is different. “The $17.4 billion in loans that the administration has offered [General Motors and Chrysler]—which the Senate did not have the good sense to do—represent a necessary bridge over the road to liquidation, protecting the economy from a potential wave of additional job losses.”

Get it? It’s okay for the president to act in defiance of the will of congress when the Senate does not have “the good sense” to do what is necessary. If congress makes a decision to do or not do something, it is not congress that is actually responsible; it is the president. After all, we can't have things ending up in a pile of rubble just because the president doesn't have the nerve to act in defiance of congress. Can we?