The Labor Market Experience of Young
African American Men from Low-Income Families in Wisconsin
by Harold M. Rose, Ronald S. Edari, Lois M. Quinn and John Pawasarat, Employment
and Training Institute, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, November
1992
NOTE: THE FULL REPORT IS NOW AVAILABLE IN PDF ONLINE:
Executive
Summary |
Harold Rose
Perspective |
Ronald Edari
Perspective
Introduction
America's promise to its young people has traditionally been jobs--decent paying employment
which offers the possibility of a home, a car, and the comforts of middle class living for a
family. Wisconsin, and particularly Milwaukee, with its healthy manufacturing economy
historically served as a magnet for workers and provided a comfortable environment in which
to raise children. However, 1990 U.S. Census figures for Milwaukee suggest that this promise
of jobs for young people seriously eroded during the last two decades of manufacturing decline
and economic restructuring. By 1990 only half of City of Milwaukee youth ages 16 through 19
years of age who were not in school were employed. According to the Census, 17 percent of
male and female out-of-school teens were unemployed, and nearly a third were not working, nor
were they actively seeking employment.
Disparities in employment status were notable by race, with white high school graduates much
more likely to be employed than African American graduates. For high school dropouts the
employment rate for African American youth (24.5 percent) was half that for whites (52.3
percent). For both populations the number of youth not employed at the time of the U.S.
Census was disturbingly high.
The type of work and level of wages available to young job applicants is also changing
dramatically, particularly for young men entering the labor force. With the decline in
manufacturing industries and the bifurcation of service jobs into low-wage jobs for unskilled
workers and high-wage jobs for professional and technically-trained employees, fewer young
men found employment to support themselves, let alone to contribute to the support of others.
While the labor force of the last two decades expanded to include an influx of baby boomers and
female entrants, service jobs represented much of the job growth of the period. In the 1980s
many service jobs "suburbanized" outward from the central city, and City of
Milwaukee residents showed a declining share of metropolitan area jobs in the often higher
paying jobs in construction; finance, insurance and real estate; and government.
Employment challenges for young African American men entering the labor force were
compounded by intense racial housing segregation, particularly in Milwaukee where over 80
percent of the 79,700 African American children under age eighteen live in a 25-square mile
area of the 1,400 square mile SMSA, and by persistent racial discrimination in the labor market.
Furthermore, by 1990, according to the U.S. Census, Wisconsin had the second highest poverty
rate for African American children in the nation. In 1990 over half (56 percent) of African
American children in Wisconsin under age 18 were growing up in poverty.
This research
study provides empirical data on the employment experience of young African American men
who entered the Wisconsin labor force in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Its goal was to
examine the early labor force experience of young men from poor families.
Absent data on Wisconsin families living in poverty, the research used state income
maintenance system files to identify all young men whose families had any contact with the
welfare system, that is, where someone in the household (not necessarily the young African
American male) had applied for or received food stamps, Aid to Families with Dependent
Children (AFDC), or medical assistance at any time in 1987, 1988 or 1989. Using this broad
net, a total of 7,456 Wisconsin young African American men and 5,863 Milwaukee male teens
were identified.
In Milwaukee because of the large number of African American youth living in poverty, it is
estimated that the study population includes over 85 percent of all African American males
entering their early twenties and over 75 percent of African American male teenagers. The
study population includes slightly less than half of African American youth from counties outside
of Milwaukee. This report does not provide information on African
American males from middle class families and should not be used to generalize
about the total experience of young African American men.
To develop a data base of the employment activities of the study population, the Employment
and Training Institute reviewed the quarterly employment records submitted by all covered
employers in Wisconsin to the state Department of Industry, Labor and Human Relations. The
researchers examined all 36,005 jobs held by males in the study population during a thirty-nine
month period from January, 1988 through March, 1991. The research, financed by the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with support from the Milwaukee Foundation, tracked actual
earnings, length of employment and type of employer over time for youth entering the labor
force and explored the extent to which wages earned allowed young men to assume financial
support for themselves or a family.
Because the data bases used did not provide information on the number of young men leaving
Wisconsin, unemployment rates for the population have been estimated conservatively to include
only those men whose wage records provided evidence that they had remained in Wisconsin.
1,661 young men born from 1966 through 1970 showed no earnings during the
39 months reviewed. These men are not included in the calculation of unemployment figures
since data was not available to determine which men had remained in Wisconsin as permanently
unemployed persons and which men may have relocated to other states. Also, state employment
files do not include unreported, informal or illegal employment.
