Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Income disparities between whites and people of color-black folks are at the bottom


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Why am I not surprised?  

The National Urban League has released its 38th edition of the “State of Black America® – One Nation Underemployed: Jobs Rebuild America” report. (read full press release here) You can read the book online.

From AP:

The underemployment rate for African-American workers was 20.5 percent, the report said, compared to 18.4 percent for Hispanic workers and 11.8 percent for white workers. Underemployment is defined as those who are jobless or working part-time jobs but desiring full-time work.

Marc H. Morial, President & CEO, of the National Urban League has said:


“While ‘too big to fail’ corporations went into the bail-out emergency room and recovered to break earnings and stock market records, most Americans have been left in ICU with multiple diagnoses of unemployment, underemployment, home losses and foreclosures, low or no savings and retirement accounts, credit denials, cuts in education and school funding-and the list of maladies continues.”

Black communities in the U.S. are engaged in struggles on multiple fronts-the economy, the criminal justice and penal system, voter suppression and repression, the environment-especially as it relates to urban areas, education, housing…wrap it up in a package and stamp a label of systemic racism on it.

What’s important from my perspective, is to focus on groups and organizations that are carrying the fight forward on different fronts, so today I’d like to highlight the work being done by the National Urban League.  

First a little history:

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The Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes was founded in New York City on September 29, 1910 by Ruth Standish Baldwin and Dr. George Edmund Haynes, among others. It merged with the Committee for the Improvement of Industrial Conditions Among Negroes in New York (founded in New York in 1906) and the National League for the Protection of Colored Women (founded in 1905), and was renamed the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes.

In 1918, Eugene K. Jones took the leadership of the organization. Under his direction, the League significantly expanded its multifaceted campaign to crack the barriers to black employment, spurred first by the boom years of the 1920s, and then by the desperate years of the Great Depression. In 1920, the organization took the present name, the National Urban League. The mission of the Urban League movement is “to enable African Americans to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights.”

In 1949, Lester Granger was appointed Executive Secretary and led the NUL’s effort to support the March on Washington proposed by A. Phillip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and A. J. Muste to protest racial discrimination in defense work and the military. During the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968), Granger prevailed in his insistence that the NUL continue its strategy of “education and persuasion”.

In 1961, Whitney Young became executive director amidst the expansion of activism in the civil rights movement, which provoked a change for the League. Young substantially expanded the League’s fund-raising ability- and made the League a full partner in the civil rights movement. In 1963, the NUL hosted the planning meetings of A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders for the March on Washington. During Young’s ten-year tenure at the League, he initiated programs such as “Street Academy,” an alternative education system to prepare high school dropouts for college; and “New Thrust,” an effort to help local black leaders identify and solve community problems. Young also pushed for federal aid to cities.

The big push this year for the Urban League is addressing jobs and raising the minimum wage .

Imagine working 40 hours a week, but still worrying about putting food on the table – or having to choose between paying your housing bill or your heating bill. Imagine working 40 hours a week and barely making enough to live, let alone save or plan for the future. Imagine working full-time and still being poor with no way out or up. Sadly, millions of Americans don’t have to IMAGINE – this is the reality they face every day.

The road from poor to plenty is long, but raising the minimum wage is an important first step in lifting millions of families out of poverty and giving them a chance at a better life. The last time the minimum wage was enough to support a family was in 1968.  Lyndon Johnson was president, and a gallon of gas was 34 cents.   Times have changed – and so should wages.

Marc H. Morial talks about the need for a jobs bill, infrastructure bill, and raising the minimum wage




How can you help?  First step, sign the petition

Second step, you can join or support them with a donation.

Cross-posted from Black Kos


10 comments

  1. Portlaw

    of color working off the books. They do important work, take that back, very important work, looking after children and the elderly.They work off the books, with no benefits. NONE. But their employers don’t want to spend that kind of money or don’t have it for women who look after their children and their parents. It is shocking beyond belief. I see these women every day since I live in a large apartment building. I know them by name. I know how hard they work and how devoted they are to those they look after. And then I hear of young white women (full disclosure, I am a white woman but not a young one) who are hired as nannies for very rich families AND their starting salaries are seventy thousand a year Plus benefits.  

  2. HappyinVT

    As my colleague Mona Chalabi noted Tuesday, the gap between men’s and women’s salaries varies substantially throughout the country. It’s largest in Wyoming, where women make 63.8 percent of what men do, and smallest in D.C., where they make 90.1 percent as much. (These figures are from the National Women’s Law Center and reflect the “ratio of annual median earnings for women and men working full time, year round.”)

    Mona and I were struck by the relationship between the gender pay gap and a state’s political environment. The eight states with the narrowest pay gap voted for President Obama in 2012, as did the District. The six states with the widest pay gap voted for Mitt Romney, often by substantial margins. Overall, the correlation between the share of the vote a state gave to Obama and its ratio of female-to-male earnings is .76.

    In those states where the pay gap is widest – Wyoming, Louisiana, West Virginia, Utah and Alabama – women occupy an average of 15 percent of seats in the legislature. In places where it is narrowest – the District, Nevada, Maryland, Vermont, New York – they represent 30 percent of the legislature. (I used the D.C. Council as a stand-in for the state legislature.)  [bold is mine] http://fivethirtyeight.com/dat

    Nate is quick to point out that one may not have to do with the other or that the number of better paid women leads to women who can afford to run.  Either way it is interesting to note.

  3. HappyinVT

    $10.10 starting 1/2015.  Gov. Shumlin would like to make that 2017 which would align with other states in order to give businesses time to prepare.  I sort of get that but businesses never seem to have to have that much time to prepare when they jack prices up.  And I know that isn’t an apples to apples comparison but it is a disgrace that workers are being forced to pay more, work more, and have less.

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