Urban News Features

Prison Population Drops for the Third Year by Frederick H. Lowe

August 4, 2013

Prison Population Drops for the Third Year
Blacks Are 13.1 percent of the nation, but 38 percent of the State-Prison Rolls
By Frederick H. Lowe

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from TheNorthStarNews.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The nation's overall prison population in state and in federal institutions dropped for the third-consecutive year in 2012, but it was not necessarily good news for African-Americans.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has reported that the inmate population in 47 state-prison systems and in the Federal Bureau of Prisons from 2011 to 2012 was an estimated 1,571,013 inmates, a drop of 1.7 percent or 27,770 prisoners.

Illinois, Washington and Nevada did not report their inmate counts in time to meet the Bureau of Justice Statistics' deadline, said Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that seeks alternatives to incarceration. The bureau is scheduled to issue its final report before the end of the year.

The decline in incarceration rates at state prisons is being caused by a number of factors, Mauer said. Various states are using alternatives to sending individuals to prison, and states also are dropping unnecessary prosecutions. In addition, states are sentencing fewer individuals to prison in order to balance their budgets, he said.

California, Texas, North Carolina, Colorado, Arkansas, New York, Florida, Virginia and Maryland each decreased their prison populations by over 1,000 in 2012, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report, "Prisoners in 2012-Advance Counts."

California accounted for 51 percent of the drop in state prisoners with 15,035 fewer inmates in 2012, compared to 2011. As part of its Public Safety Realignment policy, California housed nonviolent offenders in jails instead of prisons.

"This is the third-consecutive year of a decline in the number of state prisoners, which represents a shift in the direction of incarceration practice in the states over the past 30 years," the bureau reported. "The prison population grew every year between 1978 and 2009, from 307,276 prisoners in 1978 to a high of 1,615,487 prisoners in 2009."

The U.S. prison-population rate dropped to 480 sentenced prisoners per 100,000 residents in 2012. The national imprisonment rate for men was 910 per 100,000 male residents and the female imprisonment rate was 63 sentenced female prisoners per 100,000 female residents.

The decline in state-prison populations, however, was offset by a 0.7 percent increase of 1,453 inmates housed last year in federal prisons.

In state institutions, African-Americans prisoners did not fare well.

Black inmates were 38 percent of the state-prison population in 2011, compared to whites who were 35 percent and Hispanics who were 21 percent. African Americans still are being sentenced to prison at a higher rate than white men but the gap is closing, Mauer said.

In 2011, 284,631 African Americans were in prison for violent crimes, exceeding the number of whites and Hispanics, although the number of Hispanic inmates sentenced for violent crimes in 2011 exceeded that of blacks and whites, the study reported. There were 228,782 whites sentenced for violent crimes, compared to 162,489 Hispanics.

Some 53 percent of state inmates were sentenced to prison for robbery, murder, nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, sexual assault, and aggravated or simple assault.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that more blacks are sentenced for drug offenses, compared to whites or Hispanics, although fewer blacks than whites were sentenced to prison for property crimes.

The states with the highest imprisonment rates were states with large black populations in the deep South and in the Southwest.

They are:

Louisiana with 893 inmates per 100,000 state residents

Mississippi with 717 inmates per 100,000 state residents

Alabama with 650 inmates per 100,000 state residents

Oklahoma with 648 inmates per 100,000 state residents

Texas with 601 inmates per 100,000 state residents

In the Deep South, states punish people more, Mauer explained. After the end of the Civil War, southern states also passed numerous laws designed specifically to arrest and imprison black men, sometimes for behavior that wasn't a crime, but politicians made a crime. A black man, for example, could be arrested and imprisoned for talking too loud around a white woman. That legacy of arresting and imprisoning large numbers of black men continues to exist.

Maine, Minnesota and Rhode Island reported the lowest prison incarceration rate per 100,000.

Maine reported 145 inmates per 100,000 state residents
Minnesota reported 184 inmates per 100,000 state residents
Rhode Island reported 190 inmates per 100,000 state residents

Minnesota, however, has a high incarceration rate for black men.

Black Unemployment Down, but Still Above Others by Frederick H. Lowe

August 4, 2013

Black Unemployment Down, but Still Above Others
By Frederick H. Lowe

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from TheNorthStarNews.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in July improved for African-Americans, but joblessness among Blacks is still double or higher compared to other ethnic and racial groups.

The nation's businesses added 162,000 jobs in July compared to 188,000 jobs in June, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday morning.

Erica L. Groshen, BLS commissioner, said employment rose in retail trade, food services, financial activities and wholesale trade. The unemployment rate dropped to 7.4 percent, which was down from 8.2 percent a year ago.

The overall Black unemployment rate in July was 12.6 percent, down from 13.7 percent in June.

The jobless rate for black men 20 years old and older in July was 12.5 percent compared to 13.0 percent in June. Black women 20 years old and older fared better. In July, their unemployment rate was 10.5 percent compared to 12.0 percent in June, BLS reported.

Despite the improvement, the joblessness in the African-American community is double that of whites.

The overall white jobless rate in July was 6.6 percent, the same as in June.

White men 20 years old and older reported a July unemployment rate of 6.3 percent, up from 6.2 percent in June. White women 20 years old and older reported a July unemployment rate of 5.8 percent, down from 6.0 percent in June.

July's jobless rate for Hispanics was 9.4 percent, up from 9.1 percent in June, BLS reported.

The unemployment rate in July for Asians, which was not seasonally adjusted, was 5.7 percent compared to 5.0 percent in June.

Something is Fundamentally Wrong by William Spriggs

August 4, 2013

Something is Fundamentally Wrong

By William Spriggs

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - President Obama continues his visits to different parts of America to discuss the economy. This is his attempt to use the Bully Pulpit of the Presidency to direct a national dialogue.

The President said, "There are no simple tricks to grow the economy. What we need is a serious, steady, long-term American strategy that reverses the long erosion of middle-class security and gives everyone a fair shot to get ahead."

On this score, the President is exactly right. Clearly, we have a huge jobs deficit, but the problems facing America run deeper. We are stuck because we lost the road map. Simply getting the engine of job growth running is not going to put us on the correct path. In fact, it will simply run us into another, deeper rut.

The current Washington consensus that everything is fine, we just need to address long run fiscal deficits misses the precarious position we are in and that we are lost. In Chattanooga, President Obama raised two points directly that underscore the direction the national discussion needs to go. One is the issue of the minimum wage. The other was the awful track record of public-sector employment that has weakened the recovery from the Great Recession. Both relate to restoring the role of government and democracy in shaping our economy.

Once again, President Obama spoke to raising the minimum wage; a topic he mentioned in his State of the Union address. As he pointed out this week, "No one who works full-time in America should have to live in poverty, I will keep making the case that we need to raise a minimum wage that in real terms is lower than it was when Ronald Reagan took office."

To put that in a different way, we are currently paying workers wages that would have been illegal in 1980. To create the middle class out of the depths of the Great Depression, it was clear the government had to rewrite the rules of the game. The government had to reset the boundaries of economic activity, especially to set the boundaries for wages. It follows absolutely that if it is legal to pay workers a wage that puts them in poverty, you will have poor people. It is neither in the power of workers, or the government, to fight poverty that the market generates.

The growth of the middle class was achieved in the post World War II era, in large part, because until 1981, the minimum wage generally tracked closely the wage that yielded an income slightly higher than the poverty level. So, anyone who landed a job, and worked hard could at least start from being on the poverty floor. Today, that is not the case. Nearly 3 million people in America work hard full-time, year-round, but remain in the cellar, not even able to reach the floor of poverty. The change in the 1980s was a change in policy priority. Instead of the government setting boundaries so the market would generate middle-class outcomes, the government became the servant of the great "Job Creator"; a mythical beast that claimed powers impossible in economics. Modern economists believe that we observe the intersection of supply and demand forces; clearly outcomes cannot be generated simply by one force. This superstition has led to the "creation" of lots of low-wage jobs, despite a workforce that has grown in education and skills.

It is time to assert a positive role of the government in the economy. Letting market power reign is not the same as letting competition reign. Boundaries do not prevent competition; they merely proscribe the competitive outcome. The wielding of market power leads to the end of competition and the start of oligopolies and monopolies; and oligopolies and monopolies do not lead to efficient outcomes. This is why anti-trust laws were developed to counterbalance the powers of a few economic actors to dictate market outcomes; instead of market forces.

And, something the President said only obliquely is an important set of rules the government put in place as well. The president said, "We saved the auto industry, and thanks to General Motors and the UAW working together to bring jobs back to America, 1,800 autoworkers in Spring Hill are on the job today in what was a once-closed plant."

The importance of the UAW to saving the auto industry is a key to understanding the shortcomings of the "Job Creator" myth. For the many workers who walked out in collective action at fast-food restaurants around America this week to demand a raise in the minimum wage, the need for labor law change is clear. Government is one counterbalance to market power, but empowering workers is another way to bring equilibrium in the market place.

The Senate finally confirmed the president's nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) so the rights of those fast-food workers can be protected and upheld. But, the president needs to articulate a modernization of enforcement of workers' rights to get us back from being lost to found.

And, in asserting a positive role for the government in the economy, the president raised the point, "Over the past four years, more than 700,000 workers at the federal, state, and local levels of government have lost their jobs. These are cops, and firefighters, and about half of them are the people who work in our kids' schools. These are real jobs, too. It doesn't help a company like Amazon when hundreds of thousands of customers have less money to spend. If those layoffs hadn't happened-if public-sector employment grew like it did after the past two recessions-the unemployment rate would be more than a full percent lower today, at 6.5 percent. And our economy would be much better off." The key acknowledgement he made is that "cops, and firefighters" are "real jobs, too."

Public-sector jobs are the result of democratic forces-people demand a public good and government has to go out to hire people to deliver those goods. The market place runs on one dollar one vote. But, public demand is based on one person, one vote. The great fear of the rich in an unequal society is that the 99 percent will exercise their democratic voice to demand public goods-public safety, public roads and public education. Suddenly, what is produced in the country, and therefore the real priorities of the country, would reflect the democratic will of the people, and not just the dictates of the rich who hold the sway in what the market will produce. And in this economy, people want to know why we can't produce jobs that pay decent wages over an economy that produces profits for companies like Apple and GE that send their money overseas to hide their profits?

The president continues to move the nation to a discussion of what it will take to re-create the middle class in America. The initial reaction from Republicans was to continue to argue about long run fiscal stability; a smoke screen for a "stay the course" strategy of slow job growth and increasing inequality and ignoring the harm done to the middle class. If the president will stick to the conversation America's workers want to hear, he can unite us in a conversation about pulling America back together. He should not get distracted by a clamor for "bipartisanship."

He needs to unite America's working families, employed and people without jobs, young and needing work and old and seeking retirement security-not uniting phony party labels. That is his job; to heal the wounds of this downturn and get us back on a path to prosperity for all. Let the Republicans alone to fight for the lost cause.

William Spriggs serves as Chief Economist to the AFL-CIO and is a professor in, and former chair of the Department of Economics at Howard University. Bill is also former assistant secretary for the Office of Policy at the United States Department of Labor.

Vanessa K. Bush named Editor-in-Chief of ESSENCE Magazine

August 4, 2013

Vanessa K. Bush named Editor-in-Chief of ESSENCE Magazine

bush vanessa k

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Vanessa K. Bush, award-winning journalist, editor and author, has been named Editor-in-Chief of ESSENCE, it was announced today by Martha Nelson, Editor-in-Chief, Time Inc. As editor-in-chief, Bush will serve as the brand's editorial leader and oversee the magazine's content and vision. Most recently, Bush has served as Acting Editor-in-Chief since February of 2013, responsible for leading the editorial team.

Bush recently introduced ESSENCE's #HeIsNotASuspect social media campaign aimed at reducing racial profiling of young African-American men. She has spearheaded numerous editorial franchises including "Guns Down", ESSENCE's multi-part series addressing gun violence in our communities and "Where Smart Starts", a year-long initiative around education.

"Vanessa's more than 10 years of experience as an editorial leader at ESSENCE will ensure continued success for the preeminent African-American women's media brand," said Ms. Nelson. "She has the full support of Time Inc. to execute on her vision to honor this loyal and cherished audience."

As Acting Editor-in-Chief, Bush recruited Dawnie Walton as Deputy Editor, Aretha Busby as Beauty Director and Melissa Kramer as Fashion Director.

"Vanessa's wealth of knowledge about the ESSENCE brand and connection to our community of nearly 10 million readers has deepened reader engagement," commented ESSENCE President Michelle Ebanks. "Vanessa is poised to deliver on our mission to help African-American women move their lives forward -- not only through the magazine, but by meeting their needs across all of our branded platforms."

Prior to joining ESSENCE, Vanessa served in a variety of editorial capacities at publications such as Life and Glamour. She is also the co-author with Tyra Banks of the best-selling beauty and empowerment book, Tyra's Beauty Inside & Out.

She first joined ESSENCE more than a decade ago as Beauty and Fashion Features Editor, where she directed all style and beauty sections. In 2003, Bush was named Lifestyle Editor, responsible for coverage including food, home, parenting and lifestyle. Additionally, Bush was a member of the editorial features team, writing and editing numerous impactful stories -- such as Thin Line Between Love and Hate on teen dating violence and Fat Chances chronicling childhood obesity. In 2005, she was named Executive Editor, managing the editorial team to implement the brand's creative vision, as well as overseeing staffing, systems, operations and the magazine's operating budget.

Vanessa received her Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, in English and American Literature from Harvard University, and her Master of Science in magazine concentration from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

What is a Living Wage? by Julianne Malveaux

August 4, 2013

What is a Living Wage?
By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Workers at fast food restaurants recently demonstrated outside their places of work, highlighting the low wages they receive and demanding more. They say twice as much, or $15 an hour, will provide them with a living wage. In Washington, D.C., the City Council has sent legislation to Mayor Vincent Gray, requiring “big box” stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy to pay $12.50, more than the DC minimum wage of $8.25 an hour. In response, Wal-Mart says it may not build all of the six stores they have slated for DC. Responses depend on who you talk to, with some of the unemployed saying that an $8.25 job is better than no job, and with others saying that $8.25 is not a living wage.

Someone who earns $8.25 an hour (which is a dollar more an hour than the federal minimum wage) earns $17,160 per year if they work full time (40 hours) all year (52 weeks). Although taxes for the low income are low, they are still deducted, especially the Social Security tax (about 7 percent). Too many minimum workers don’t work full-time, full-year. Many have their hours cut so that companies can avoid paying benefits. This means full time, full year work is the best-case scenario. For many, it can be much worse.

The poverty line for one adult and two children is $19,530, which puts the $8.25 worker below the poverty line. The parent who earns this scant wage struggles to make ends meet, and often cannot. Too often, this parent has to choose between transportation and shoes for their children, between children’s books and food. A two-parent family has a higher poverty threshold of $23,550, about 20 percent more than the minimum wage worker earns.

Federal and state supplements often make the difference between swimming and sinking. Many families who live below the poverty line use supplemental nutrition programs (that used to be called food stamps) to enhance their food budget. Congress is in the process of cutting SNAP so low that 5 million of the roughly 47 million people on the program will be cut. Some receive medical assistance through Medicaid. Some cities subsidize summer programs or other efforts, offering day care possibilities for those who struggle to afford it. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the average cost of childcare in the District of Columbia is $1300 a month, or $13,600 a year. Poverty line $23,550, childcare costs $13,600 per year. Go figure.

In other parts of the country, full time, full year workers earn less than DC workers. Those who earn the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour earn $15,160 per year, less than the poverty line for one parent and one child. Those who earn $12.50 per hour, the proposed wage for DC big box stores, will earn $26,000 a year. The $15 an hour that some fast food workers suggest would push their wages to $31,200 a year.

Some feel these low wages are acceptable, especially some Tea Party members of Congress, yet they earn at least $174,000 per year. Actually if fast food workers were as productive as this Congress (which has produced little of nothing so far this year), they wouldn’t earn a penny. Yet those who are well paid and well supported show little empathy for those whose lives and work are daily struggles.

The issue of unemployment must be taken into account when we look at the matter of poverty lines and minimum wages. With an overall unemployment rate of well above 7 percent (unless a miracle occurs on August 2, after this column is filed), and a black unemployment rate of more than 13 percent, too many households with two adults have only one earner in the household. Another concern is that the federal poverty line is published as a national rate, yet it’s much cheaper to live, for example, in rural Mississippi than it does in New York City. In many instances, the poverty line does not reflect differences in housing costs, health care costs, or even transportation costs.

The Economic Policy Institute (epi.org) has developed budgets for “adequate” living in certain cities. (Full disclosure – I sit on the organization’s board). This tool shows the wide variety of realistic and adequate living costs, which range from more than $90,000 in New York City, to around $40,000 in parts of Mississippi. These are adequate living standards, not extravagant ones, taking into account rent, transportation, and other costs.

Many quibble about the level of the minimum wage, but the more relevant issue is the living wage. Millions are pushed below the poverty line because too many employers do not take the cost of living into consideration when the set wage levels. Paying workers less than they are worth drains our economy because these workers will not be spenders or “economic expanders”

Julianne Malveaux is a DC based economist and author.