Harry Jaffe: Unemployment stats paint a tale of two cities
By: Harry Jaffe
Examiner Columnist
November 6, 2009
In 1962, sociologist Michael Harrington published "The Other America," his landmark book about how the other half lived. He painted a portrait of Americans living in squalor and hunger. His book helped start the "war on poverty."
The war is not going well in the nation's capital city.
This week, the District's employment services department released unemployment rates that show the immense gap between the two Washingtons: one white and working; the other black and jobless.
In Ward 8, east of the Anacostia River, nearly a third of the work force was without a job in September. Reaching a new high, the number of unemployed hit 28.3 percent.
But in Ward 3, which I often refer to as Upper Caucasia, the unemployment rate was 3.2 percent. The white folks who live in Chevy Chase, American University Park, Friendship Heights and Spring Valley are doing quite well, thank you very much.
Math is not my strong suit, but I believe the difference in unemployment rates in Ward 8 and Ward 3 is darn close to 10-to-1.
The "Other D.C." is evident in crime statistics, too. Ward 8 is a war zone; Ward 3 is a relatively peaceable kingdom, though crime is on the rise. According to police statistics, last month there were 118 violent crimes in Anacostia's Seventh District, but only 42 in the Second District between Georgetown and Friendship Heights. You were three times more likely to get robbed or assaulted with a gun in Anacostia as opposed to Upper Caucasia.
The divide becomes even more stark when you use Rock Creek Park as a border between the city's two sides. The two wards west of the park have an unemployment rate of about 5 percent; east of the park the rate doubles to 10 and keeps rising to Anacostia's 30 percent.
Why?
We are always tempted to throw up our hands and blame poverty and health care and drugs and the various ills of urban life. I am with Kwame Brown.
"The city has never focused on making job training a priority," says Brown, an at-large council member who chairs the economic development committee. "We're losing low-level jobs in retail and construction, but we have not trained people for better jobs."
Brown says there are three tiers of unemployed Washingtonians: those who have lost jobs, many who have no skills, and some who are coming into the work force from prison or drug rehab.
"There is no infrastructure in the city to deal with any of them," Brown says. "We spent $42 million for summer jobs for youth and $3 million to train their parents. That's stupid!"
But isn't he in the position to create and fund job-training facilities? Yes and no. Brown championed the renovation of Phelps Vocational High, and he funded an adult education program there at night.
"It's still closed every night," he says. The Fenty administration, he says, has not figured out how to run and manage adult education programs.
Without education and raining programs, the "other Washington" is here to stay.
E-mail Harry Jaffe at hjaffe@washingtonexaminer.com.
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