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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture - 8. The Size of the Negro Labor Force and Negro Employment - 9. Negro and White Unemployment
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Chapter 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture 301
to the fact that unemployment among Negroes is greater in the North
than in the South, and much greater in urban than in rural areas. Also, it
is an index of the differences in economic standards. Both relief grants
and nonrelief earnings are much more adequate in Northern than in South-
ern cities; both are particularly inadequate in farm areas of the South.*
We should not, however, be hasty in jumping to the conclusion that
‘‘relief has demoralized the Negro.” Of course, something of the sort may
have happened in many individual cases, both in the white and in the
Negro group. But, by and large, the moral indignation against the Negro
that is implied in this stereotype is entirely misplaced. We must keep in
mind that so far no appeal has been made to the ambition of the Negro to
better himself economically. On the contrary, white people, by means of
the severe job restrictions they have imposed upon the Negro—and by
denying him sufficient public health facilities—have forced him to accept
public relief as one of his “major occupations.” Therefore, if the Negro,
in a sense, has become “demoralized,” it is rather because white feofle
have given him a smaller share of the steady and worth-while jobs than of
the fublic assistance benefits.
It should be emphasized, further, that, in spite of the more liberal relief
policies of the last decades, there are still, proportionately, a greater number
of workers and job-seekers in the Negro than in the white population. The
decline has occurred mainly among aged persons who should be allowed to
retire,^*^ among youth who can use some additional school education, and
among women who have their own homes and families to attend to.
In the future, however, this problem may become of increasing signifi-
cance. There is still, as we shall show,*^ much discrimination against the
Negro in the relief system. If these discriminatory practices are removed
and the federal government is working toward that end—^but if present job
restrictions are maintained, then, of course, there is a real danger that the
Negro will become a burden on the national economy. This is the basic
dilemma in the problem of the Negroe^s integration into American economic
life. It must be faced squarely.
9. Negro and White Unemployment
We have seen that there are more Negroes than whites, in proportion,
who offer their services on the labor market. More Negroes need employ-
ment than do whites, for the simple reason that the pay for each job that a
Negro can get usually is so much lower than are the earnings that a white
person can get. Yet the unemployment is much higher for Negroes than for
whites. About 25 per cent of the nonwhite male labor force in nonfarm
areas was without any employment on the labor market in 194O; and 15
* See Chapters 1 5 and 1 6.
^ Sec Chapter 1 5.
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