Long before the recent recession, African American workers experienced double-digit levels of unemployment, along with serious underemployment and over-representation in low wage jobs without benefits.
As of December 2012 black unemployment was 14 percent, almost twice the national average. Racial discrimination in hiring is exacerbated by high levels of former incarceration among black men, driven in part by the failed war on drugs.
New models of black worker organizing, including black worker centers, offer promising strategies to address this important challenge.