In the decade leading up to the Great Recession, Wanda Nolan grew accustomed to steady progress.
From an entry-level job as a fill-in bank teller, she forged a career as a commercial banking assistant, earning enough to become a homeowner. She finished college and then got an MBA. Even after the recession unfolded in late 2007, her degrees and her familiarity with the business world lent her a sense of immunity to the forces ravaging much of the American economy. Nolan was an exemplar of the African American middle class and the increasingly professional ranks of the so-called New South.
But in September 2008, everything changed.
A bank human resources officer called her into a private conference room. “All I heard was, ‘Your position has been eliminated,’” says Nolan, 37, who, despite being one of the more than 13 million officially unemployed Americans, still spends most days in her self-styled banker’s uniform of pearls and pants and practical flats. “My mind started racing.”
More than two years later, Nolan is still looking for a job and feeling increasingly anxious about a future that once felt assured. Her life has devolved from a model of middle class African American upward mobility into an example of a disturbing trend: She is among the 15.5 percent of African Americans out of work and still looking for a job.
For economists, that number may sound awful, but it’s not surprising. The nation’s overall unemployment rate sits at 8.8 percent and the rate among white Americans is at 7.9 percent. For a variety of reasons -- ranging from levels of education and continuing discrimination to the relatively young age of black workers -- black unemployment tends to run twice the rate for whites. Yet since the Great Recession, joblessness has remained so critically elevated among African Americans that it is challenging longstanding ideas about what it takes to find work in the modern-day economy.
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Everyone wants to talk about the failing ecnomy and everyone wants to blame it on President Obama. This economy was already failing Obama inherit it. The fact is that Obama said he was going to help turn this economy and he is doing it. He may not be doing it as fast as people thought in there little fairy tale mind. It is going to takes time to make this economy better. You cant have 8 bad years fixed in 3 years its just not possible.
ReplyDeleteI would have to agree with Mikel. President Obama has inherited a great deal of issues just like President Clinton did. It took him at least four years to turn things around. Is it because the color of his skin that we are not willing to have the patience that we had when Clinton was president. Working in a portion of the government Human Resources area I have knowledge of programs and projects that he has set in place to help the economy. It is time to stop being so quick to judge and be critical and have some patience and understanding. We have to work together with each other. It should not matter whether the lower and middle class get 4% more help than the wealthy or upper class. What should matter is that higher education is made to everyone, our children are not suffering and parents are able to provide for their families.
ReplyDeleteI agree that we need to give the economy time to turn around but it just seems to me that increasing the price on college education and reducing jobs is major issue on it's own. If certain jobs are just being "eliminated" then who is doing the work that used to be done in that job?
ReplyDeleteI understand what Wanda Nolan is going through, my husband fell into these same shoes. The company he worked for over 10 years closed down. Many people that worked for that company had been there since age 18 and was looking forward to retirement.It was a company that paid their employees a substantial amount of income. Many like my husband had to dip into their retirement savings to help them out until they was able to find employment. Luckily, I still had my job that paid me a good enough income to help sustain us through this rocky road. Like Wanda, we always prepared for a rainy day and have now almost drained that savings to pick us up where we fell short. I must say, my husband has been able to find other jobs, but not making the same money he was used to bringing home to provide for his family. We've adjusted our living expenses and have sustained the economy and looking and waiting for this economy to get back to full time employment.
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