2009 Race and Recession Report

1 • Applied Research Center • Race and Recession 2009
Raceand
Recession
How Inequity Rigged the Economy and
How to Change the Rules.
May 2009
Applied Research Center
arc.org/recession
table of contents
Executive Summary...3
Chapter 1. Introduction: Some are More Unequal...7
Chapter 2. Race and Work in the Crisis Economy...11

Unemployment and Underemployment...12
• Permanent Recession...13
• Unemployment for Young People of Color...14
• Underemployment...15
Racial Job Segregation...15
• Job Segregation and Low-Wage Work...16
• Inequitable Benefits: Discriminatory Healthcare Access...19
Structural and Institutional Roots of Racial Inequities in Work...20
• Discriminatory Hiring and Promotion...21
• Employment Barriers: Incarceration, Reentry and Recovery...232
• Immigrants and Exploitative, Low-Wage Work...25
• Inadequate Enforcement of Workplace Protections...26
• Misplacing Blame...27
No Safety Net: The Impact of Welfare Reform...28
• Race and Welfare Reform...29
• Work Requirements and Low-Wage Work...30
Conclusion...31
Chapter 3. Housing Discrimination, Race and Wealth...32

Foreclosure and Wealth...33
Race and Foreclosure: The Facts on the Ground...37
It’s Historical/It’s Structural...39
• Redlining...39
•The Cumulative Effect of Housing Discrimination...40
• Reverse Redlining...41
Renters...43
• Rent Affordability and Public Housing...43
Conclusion...46
Chapter 4. Conclusion: Moving Forward...47
Acknowledgements...50
co-releasers...51
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EXECUTIVE SUMMA R Y
News headlines report this recession’s grim statistics.
“Four months into the year, the unemployment rate
has already soared to 8.9 percent.”
“Foreclosure filings surged.”
“Stock market down 50% from Oct. 2007 peak.”
While all Americans worry about economic insecurity during this crisis, its most damaging effects have been
unevenly distributed. People of color are unemployed, hungry, homeless and without healthcare at alarming
rates. Many have already fallen through the widening cracks in the social safety net, and countless more are
about to go under. This dire and worsening situation amounts to a state of emergency. Examining the dispari-
ties reveals patterns that are not simply coincidental. Indeed, people of color face barriers to opportunity at
every turn, and the impact is devastating, not just to them, but also to struggling white people. Ultimately, to
ensure a stable and growing economy for all will require solutions that directly address these disparities.
Farrah Hassan,
Vincent L.W.,
Leo Shipman,
Gina Owens
Sandra Hines, Tanya Alina,
Seattle, WA
Mrs. Mallory, Kasia,
Daniel Duane Spyker Joseph Aranha
Detroit, MI New York, NY
Shanniah Connolly,
Edgardo Caban,
Aline and Dione
Samantha Claveria Sabrina Otis Providence, RI
Central, CA Cleveland, OH
Little Rock, AR
Maria Cecilia Osorio
Nogales, AZ
Dominga Hurtado
Austin, TX
Martin Jaqac Louise Alston

San Antonio, TX Port St. Lucie, FL
William Perry
New Orleans, LA
This report takes us beyond the numbers to explore the root causes of racial
inequity. As the recession ravages the country, the Applied Research Center has been
following its path. From Rhode Island’s welfare offices to job placement centers in
Detroit, from Washington State’s hospitals to construction sites of Austin, Texas, we
gathered real stories about what this recession means in a country in which race is a
significant predictor of one’s economic situation. These stories and supporting data
reveal the policies behind the patterns of racial inequity that have created an economy
that is precarious for everyone. The report calls for an inclusive recovery, recognizing
that a healthy economy requires explicit attention to our deepest racial divides.
The distribution of the recession’s worst results is not random. Rather, the
conditions that create this disparity are structural, deeply embedded into the rules,
the histories and the cultural currents of this country. As the nation unites to recover
and rebuild, the time has come for new rules so that everyone can engage on fair
and even terms. To avoid repeating this crisis we must recognize and combat the
compounding effects of racial inequity.
KEY FINDINGS
• People
of color have been relegated to precarious, low-wage work—or no
work−at disproportionate rates. Black, Latino, Asian and American Indian
communities face barriers to employment, including discrimination in
hires and promotions, unfair criminal background checks and the lack of
protections for immigrant workers. As a result, communities of color on
the whole, relative to whites, face higher rates of poverty, are less likely to
have healthcare and consistently face recessionary levels of unemployment
and underemployment.
Unemployment by Race, 1973-2009

20.1
20
15.6 Periods of Recession in the US

15
13.3
Black
11.4
10 Latino
9.1 9.2
7.9
6.9 White
5
4.0
1973 1975 1980 1983 1990 1992 1998 2001 March 2009
Source: Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009
*Note: Unemployment rates are taken from seasonally-adjusted monthly data for March of each year. Unfortunately, the Census doesn't collect or
provide data disaggregated by nationality and/or ethnicity for Asians and American Indian, at this time.
• Vincent L. W., a Black man in his mid 40s, cannot land a job. In
addition to the contracting job market and his minimal education, Vincent
is marked by a criminal record from two decades ago that follows him
everywhere. When he does get an interview, he is often turned away,
told that his criminal record makes him ineligible. Homeless, Vincent
spends his nights on other people’s couches. Facing compounding
obstacles at every turn, from a lack of education, employment and housing
to few opportunities for advancement, he faces the prospect of being
permanently poor.
25
• Maria Cecilia Osorio lives in Nogales, Arizona with her two children.
The border town has been hit hard by the recession, and she has been
unable to find work for weeks. But even before the economic downturn,
Osorio struggled with abuse and exploitation as a worker. She worked in
a produce factory where she and her fellow employees were paid just $6
an hour, less than the minimum wage. “They discriminate a lot when you
don’t have papers,” she said. “They did everything but crack the whip to
make us work.” Osorio recalled that the boss would threaten to call the
border patrol if they did not do exactly as they were told.
•B
ecause people of color have less income and less wealth, they have less to
fall back on in hard times, and yet the safety net for poor families has been
eroded over the past dozen years. The compounding effects of lower wages,
diminishing wealth and a decayed social safety net leave families of color
with little hope and a growing possibility of falling into desperate times.
• Farrah Hassan1, an Iraqi American mother of four in her early

30s, was laid off from her job as a teacher’s assistant. After her
unemployment benefits ran out, she applied for cash assistance. Two
months later, however, she was sanctioned for not complying with the
state’s work requirement, and her benefits were cut off. At the same time,
Hassan’s mortgage bill doubled, and she fell behind on her payments. The
house was soon put into foreclosure. The prospect of being simultaneously
jobless, homeless and penniless leaves Hassan and her family with an
accumulated debt that could take a generation to recover from.
•T
he cumulative effects of historic and current housing discrimination—
including restrictive racial covenants, redlining and neighborhood
segregation—have left people of color with less equity and access to credit,
making them vulnerable to disproportionate rates of predatory lending and
foreclosure. Communities of color were saddled with predatory subprime
loans at very high rates. Many were sold subprime loans when they could
have qualified for prime loans. The foreclosure epidemic has plagued
communities of color and caused a loss of wealth that will have lasting
generational effects. Disproportionate rates of foreclosure compound the
deep and growing racial wealth divide.
Racial Wealth Divide, 1992-2007

170
200
White
150
101
100
50
28
17
People of Color
0
1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007
Source: Survey of Consumer Finance, Federal Reserve, 2007
• Sandra Hines, a middle-aged Black woman, lost her family home

to foreclosure. Like the great majority of American families, the primary
source of wealth in communities of color is in housing. The family moved
into a rental house, but it, too, was hit by foreclosure. Her story, combined
with the stories of millions of other people of color who have recently
lost their homes and most of their assets–wealth that was allowed by
government policies (or lack thereof) to transfer to corporate interests—
represents the latest chapter in a long-standing and intensifying racial
wealth divide.
Key Recommendations
These problems are profound but need not be permanent. Many viable policy
solutions exist to address root causes, systemic barriers and structural racial
inequities. Policies must immediately help those most adversely affected by the
recession and proactively tackle existing racial disparities through conscious attention
to racial impacts. Ultimately, the building of a healthy economy must fundamentally
rest upon both emergency actions and new policies that are racially inclusive and
equitable for everyone.
1. Overarching Policy Framework

• Expand the use of Racial Equity Impact Assessments for public planning
and policy so that we can anticipate and prevent racial inequities before
adoption of new policies and practices. This would provide a mechanism
to consciously and systematically address racial inequities proactively
during the policymaking process.
2. Immediate Actions: Alleviate State of Emergency

• Moratorium on foreclosures
• Suspension of Temporary Aid for Needy Families lifetime time limits
• Moratorium on workplace immigration raids
• Expunging of criminal records for most past offenders and elimination
of questions about past convictions on public employment applications
(“Ban the Box” initiatives)
• Enforcement of anti-discrimination laws
3. Policies Needed within the Next Year

• Employee Free Choice Act
• Community Reinvestment Act Modernization
• Immigrant Legalization
• Green Jobs-Good Jobs
• Raise the Minimum Wage
• Pass Comprehensive Universal Healthcare
Ch a p t e r
1 Introduction: Some Are More Unequal
Until last spring, Farrah Hassan2 thought she was living the American Dream. She came
to Detroit, Michigan as a refugee from Iraq 15 years ago, went to college, started a job as a
teacher’s assistant and bought a house for herself and her four children. “I was finally able to
work and support my kids. We bought a house to get settled,” she said.
But last year, Hassan lost her job because of state budget cuts. Unable to find work, Hassan’s
unemployment benefits ran out. With no savings to fall back on, she applied for Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families. The $600 dollars she received in income assistance helped her
pay her mortgage—also $600. But two months later, she and her family were cut off the welfare
rolls for falling out of compliance with the state’s welfare work requirements. “They told me, ‘we
can’t give you cash unless you find a job.’ I went to look, but there aren’t any jobs,” she said.
Around the same time, Hassan’s mortgage bill doubled. She realized she had been sold
a predatory loan with a “teaser” rate. “When I got my house,” she said, “I talked to the
mortgage lady, and I told her that if the payment was going to be more than $600 I didn’t
want to buy the house. She told me that the highest amount would be $600.” Hassan received
a foreclosure letter, and when we met her, eviction was three months away. “I have no idea
what I’ll do. Where am I going to go with four kids?” she wondered.
Cumulative and Compounding The country is facing an economic crisis and many are
Effects of Structural Racism experiencing unprecedented instability. Individual Americans of all
races are facing dire situations−losing their jobs, homes and security.
People of color face a disproportionate
For communities of color, the crisis is intensified, and people like Farrah
impact of the economic downturn
because of preexisting structural and Hassan are affected disproportionately. This report tells the story of what
institutional racial inequities. These the recession—now the deepest and most devastating since the Great
inequities are both cumulative and Depression−means in the lives of ordinary people of color in this country.
compounding. The report argues that the emergency now upon communities of color
Cumulative effects refer to the ongoing
is the result of historic and current inequities, policies and practices that
impact of policies and practices, created block Black, Latino, Asian and American Indian people from opportunity
over time. and stability, and now plunges more families into despair. Further, these
disparities pose a threat to the health of our national economy.
Compounding effects occur when
In contrast to our collective ideals of fairness and opportunity, in the
multiple institutions or policies intersect
simultaneously. real world, the terms are rigged against people of color. The outcomes
are not random and reflect neither merit nor skill; rather, they are warped
by a set of rules, practices, assumptions and histories that position some
at a disadvantage from the onset and continue to restrict opportunity at
every turn.
Follow this icon through In his inaugural address, President Obama affirmed: “A nation
the report to see how cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success
multiple institutions, of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross
policies and practices domestic product, but also on the reach of our prosperity, on our
compound to create ability to extend opportunity.” Indeed, comparative research shows that
unfair terms for countries with equitable incomes see faster rates of overall growth.3
communities of color.
Fig. 1. Productivity and Median Weekly Earnings in U.S.,

1990-2008
141
132
Productivity
120 Median Weekly Earnings
106
108 107
100.3 100
100 100
95
90
1990 1992 1997 2004 2008
*Note: Productivity index, obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is output per hour in the nonfarm
business sector. Median weekly earnings index based on ARC's calculations from data obtained from the
Current Population Survey.1992 is the base year for both indices, where the value is 100..
Cost of Living But the United States has failed to extend prosperity. While
productivity and employment were on the rise between 1990 and 2008,
The cost of living is rising. According the growth was not mirrored in the lives of most U.S. residents. Though
to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), productivity was up almost 50% from 1990, real median hourly wages
a basic family budget is much higher had only risen 6% for all workers, with none of the growth occurring
than a minimum wage provides. after 2001 (see Figure 1).4 While a few people on the very top of this
The federal minimum wage is set to increasingly stratified economy have reaped the benefits of high levels of
increase to $7.25 in July 2009, which growth, most workers have not gained.
amounts to an annual income of Yet this inequality itself has not been evenly distributed. Income
$15,138 if working full-time all year. inequality between whites and people of color has increased as
According to EPI calculations, a basic general stratification grew over the past decade. While it is widely noted
budget required for a family with two that growing inequality is a sign of an unhealthy economy, less often
adults and two children was $48,778 acknowledged is the color of inequality. As wages of all workers grew
last year. This is well above the only marginally and then remained static, Latino and Black real median
median income of families of color, family incomes actually fell 2.2% and 1%, respectively, between 2000
while the median income of white and 2007.5 The decline was the first in a business cycle of this length
families is above this measure. In fact, since World War II.6
over 50% of Black and Latino families
fall below the basic family budget, as
compared to 20% of white families.
Indeed, growing stratification cannot be fully understood without accounting

for persistent racial inequality. The Applied Research Center compared levels of
overall income inequality in the 50 states and the District of Columbia to racial
Overall rates of income demographic data and found a significant relationship between income inequality
inequality in the United States and percentage of people of color per state: states with the largest income
are inextricably linked to disparities between the top and bottom earners were also the ones with the
growing and persistent rates of highest proportion of people of color. Among the states with the highest levels
racial inequality. of income inequality, 11 had high percentages of people of color. This included
three states with a majority population of color—New Mexico, California and Texas.
Only two of the 17 states with high income inequality, Kentucky and Ohio, had low
concentrations of people of color. Just four states buck the trend with low income
inequality yet high concentrations of people of color.7
The state analysis reveals that overall rates of income inequality in the
United States are inextricably linked to growing and persistent rates of
racial inequality. To address the growing divide—the same stratification that we
now know pushed the economy into decline by diminishing real incomes and
increasing family debt—requires eradicating racial inequities that pull people of
color to the bottom.
Fig. 2. Income Inequality and Race in U.S., 2007
ME
WA
MT
VT NH
ND
OR
WY SD MN
WI NY MA
ID
NV
IA MI
CA
PA NJ
NE IN
MD
CO OH WV
IL DE
UT VA
KS KY
MO NC
AZ
OK AR TN SC
GA
High Density of
NM
People of Color
AL
TX MS
Medium Density of
LA People of Color
AK
Low Density of
People of Color
FL
HI
High Inequality Medium Inequality Low Inequality
Source: ARC's calculations of U.S. Census data.

*Note: Income inequality measured by a ratio of the top-fifth income earners and bottom-fifth; calculated based on data from the Current Population
Survey in 2007. Percentage of people of color based on data from Population Estimates of the Census in 2008.
Income and wealth inequality is racialized in the United States because the
Precarious Work cumulative and compounding effects of past and present policies generate
deep racial disparities. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944—the G.I.
“Precarious Work” is work that pays Bill—provides a clear example of the way that racial inequity accumulates over
too little to support a family and does time. Signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the bill aimed to give every
not conform to the traditional model returning World War II veteran the opportunity to further his education, borrow
of full-time, year-round employment money for a house or business, or receive a well-paying job. Yet veterans of color
with a single employer.9 As the were blocked from buying homes during these post-war years by restrictive
economy has become increasingly racial covenants that denied them access to mortgages. As home ownership
globalized and the service sector grew exponentially, the economic gap between white and nonwhite households
has grown in significance relative widened, and the ripple effects are still felt today.8
to manufacturing, workers are less
secure and face stagnating and even
declining wages. Through extensive interviews with dozens of individuals around the country and
data analysis, this report shows that people of color continue to face housing
discrimination that builds upon that of the past, are relegated to precarious and
low-wage jobs and regularly confront persistent barriers to opportunity. People
of color have less accumulated wealth than whites and therefore less to fall
back on in hard economic times. Yet the safety net for all poor people has been
diminished, leaving many families without the support they need to survive.
These failures of public policy need to be addressed immediately as federal,
state and local governments implement job creation and economic recovery
programs with funds from the Stimulus Bill. The persistent reality of these
disparities means that without explicit attention to inequity, racial divisions will
remain, or even grow. Discussing efforts to revitalize the job market, former U.S.
Secretary of Labor Robert Reich stated: “If construction jobs go mainly to white
males who already dominate the construction trades, many people who need
jobs the most−women, minorities, and the poor and long-term unemployed−will
be shut out.”10
Racial inequity stands in the way of opportunity for communities of color
and a healthy economy for all Americans. We need only the political will to
adopt the many solutions available. These policies will have to tackle both the
institutional and historical roots of racial inequity that created an unequal playing
field for people of color and the compounding effect of the multiple institutions
that affect these communities. As in the case of Farrah Hassan, the crisis
facing communities of color comes from every angle. She has been struck by
unemployment, predatory lending and the eroded safety net. Hassan and the
hundreds of other people from around the country who we met in compiling this
report need both immediate relief and long-term, structural repairs that create
fertile ground for our most precious American Dream: liberty and justice for all.
Ch a p t e r
2 Race and Work in the Crisis Economy
In San Antonio, Texas, Martin Jaqac, a 40-year-old Latino construction worker with five
children, has been seeking work for weeks and worries about feeding his family. He stands on a
corner with other day laborers, arriving early in the morning and leaving empty-handed at day’s
end. When he does work, he sometimes does not get paid. When we met him, the police arrived to
hand out tickets for loitering, and the men ran under a highway overpass.
In a Department of Human Services office in Providence, Rhode Island, Belinda Reyes11, a

20-year-old Latina who recently lost her minimum-wage job at an eyeglass store, is missing the first
two days of her GED class. She desperately needs a job to support herself, her 1-year-old daughter
and her disabled mother, whom she cares for, but there is little out there for someone without a
high school degree. She fills out forms, waits in lines and tries to navigate the bureaucracy to get
childcare assistance and some government income support for her child.
Marcus Shepherd, 19, can find no work at all in Detroit, where he lives with his uncle. Shepherd
is on probation, and he says that when he fills out applications, he dreads having to check the box
that asks about his criminal history. He believes he could get a job if only he did not have to tell
potential employers that he’s been incarcerated. Every morning, Shepherd wonders if his uncle will
say he has to move out. If that happens, he expects to be homeless.
This chapter explores racial inequity in jobs and employment in the

context of the current economic recession. The United for a Fair Economy State
of the Dream 2009 report found that while white people are facing a recession,
people of color endure a severe and durable enough recession that it amounts to
an economic depression.12 The chapter describes the stark reality of insufficient
access to work that can support a family and the policies and practices that
make an economy that is precarious for everyone and perilous for too many
communities of color. While the recession is commonly treated as temporary,
communities of color have faced stagnating and declining conditions for much
longer, circumstances that whites experience only periodically in the worst
economic downturns.
• The concentration of people of color in specific occupations has made
them more vulnerable to the effects of the economic downturn. People
of color are more likely than whites to get laid off and more likely to be
unemployed and underemployed. Further, people of color regularly face
levels of unemployment and underemployment as high or higher than levels
faced by whites only in economic downturns.
• Equal pay for equal work has never been a reality. Wages have always been
lower for people of color than whites, making it much more difficult for
people of color to gather a financial cushion.
• Workers of color are still subject to hiring discrimination and abuse ranging
from wage theft to forced part-time work that renders them ineligible for
benefits.
• There are formidable legal barriers to many workers of color entering the
workforce and maintaining stable, living-wage employment. Workers who
are undocumented or have a criminal record have difficulties getting hired
and/or are vulnerable to exploitation.
• The federal safety net is too weak to support those who are most harmed by
the recession.
Unemployment and Underemployment
Leo Shipman, a 24-year-old Black man with a goatee and short hair, dressed in a new, white
t-shirt, recently lost his job in Detroit. The unemployment rate in the city hit 22.2% in January.
“My biggest worry is my son,” he said about his 3-year-old. “You don’t know how you’re going to
feed them He doesn’t know the bills are running up, but I do.”
When Shipman is not taking buses and taxis to drop off resumes or running from one job
interview to another, he waits at the Tried Stone Baptist Church in Detroit, where his mother
works as a receptionist. The church sits on a block among shuttered houses in a part of Detroit that
has struggled for decades. Porches are overgrown with bushes, and windows are covered by plywood
planks. The streets were largely empty of cars and pedestrians when we arrived to meet Shipman.
“How many houses you see burnt down, how many people you see walking up and down the streets
with no good shoes on their feet?” asked Shipman about his neighborhood. When we arrived to
interview him, a pipe had just burst in the church’s basement.
At 3:00, Shipman left to pick up his son. The boy spends his time between his parents, and
Shipman puts a lot of pressure on himself to “make it on my own,” to live independently and help
support his son. His son’s mother still has a job. Even when Shipman was working, he was barely
able to scrape by, earning about $380 a week ($9.50/hour) as a thermal press operator at a small
company that makes plastic truck-bed liners for Dodge and other auto companies.
At the end of November 2008, the company told all but three of its 30 workers that they were
being let go because demand had evaporated with auto sales at their lowest since World War II.13
With only a high school education—he’s been trying to enroll in a technical college—securing a
living-wage job proves elusive if not impossible. Because he had been underemployed, Shipman
had no unemployment check coming in at the time. He’s not sure what he’ll do.
The chaos in the auto industry, which provides 8.9% of Michigan jobs,
pushed the state’s March unemployment rate up to 12.6%, the highest in the
country.14 Black workers have been hit especially hard because their 14.2 %
concentration in the industry is higher than their overall 11.2% share of the state’s
labor market15. In the auto industry alone from December 2007 to November
2008, 20,000 Black workers lost their jobs, and the possibility of hundreds of
thousands more losses still looms.16
Leo Shipman recently sold his car to pay his rent and other bills and buy
food. He is not alone in being forced to make major sacrifices after becoming
unemployed.17 According to a late 2008 survey conducted by the National
Employment Law Center (NELP), 20% percent of people who become
unemployed sell their cars to pay for other essentials.18 Detroit is not a walkable
city. The home of the Big Three automakers is a grid of interconnecting freeways.
Without a car, Shipman relies on underfunded and unreliable public transportation.
The NELP survey also found that 35% percent of unemployed renters had
to move in with family, and 46% fall behind on rent payments. Over one-third
sold property, and almost half borrowed money to stay afloat. For Shipman, who
doesn’t want his son to know that things are so bad, having to buy less food will
make it hard to hide. Many people have tapped into savings or taken money out
of retirement accounts, but Shipman does not have these options.
“I’m out here looking for something, but there’s nothing to find,” said Shipman. Despite determination
to making it on his own, Shipman, like so many in this country, finds himself teetering on the edge.
“The bailout helped certain people,” he said of the $13.4 billion dollars the federal government
pumped into Chrysler and General Motors last December, “but it didn’t help me.”
Rates of employment are a central measure of economic wellbeing, and an

extended increase in unemployment is one signifier of recession (see Figure 4). In
March of this year, unemployment reached 8.5% nationally, up from 5.1% in March
You lose your job,
2008. And, the structural disparity remains: 7.9% of whites were unemployed
sell your car and
in March, while 13.3% of Black workers had no job, and 11.4% of Latinos were
start to fall behind on
out of work. In part, this is due to the fact that Black and Latino workers are
your rent payments.
overrepresented in occupations with high unemployment rates, according to
You’re worried about
data the Applied Research Center compiled from the Current Population Survey.
buying enough food
These include service sector jobs, as well as construction jobs and production,
for your child.
transportation and material moving jobs.
Permanent Recession
While recessions increase unemployment for everyone, disparate unemployment
rates for whites and people of color are a longstanding feature of the U.S. economy.
In fact, unemployment among people of color is consistently higher than recession-
level unemployment rates for whites. Algernon Austin of the Economic Policy
Institute has thus termed this “Black America’s permanent recession.”19
Fig. 3. Unemployment by Race, 1973-2009

20.1
20
15.6 Periods of Recession in the US

15
13.3
Black
11.4
10 Latino
9.1 9.2
7.9
6.9 White
5
4.0
1973 1975 1980 1983 1990 1992 1998 2001 March 2009
*Note: Unemployment rates are taken from seasonally-adjusted monthly data for March of each year. Unfortunately, the Census doesn't collect or
provide data disaggregated by nationality and/or ethnicity for Asians and American Indian, at this time.
The Applied Research Center analyzed statistics from the Current Population
Survey over a 37-year period and found that unemployment for people of color
rarely fell below even the highest, recession-level rates of white unemployment.
Black unemployment was at Black unemployment was at least double that of whites for all but five of
least double that of whites for those years. Latinos were 1.5 times more likely to be unemployed than whites
all but five of the last 37 years. for 28 out of 37 years. In this 37-year period, white unemployment hit its peak
Latinos were 1.5 times more in 1983 at 9.3%. By comparison, the lowest rate of Black unemployment was
likely to be unemployed than 7.7% in 2001, with a 37-year median rate of 12.05%. The median for Latinos,
whites for 28 out of 37 years. 8.95%, was only slightly lower than the high for whites. The finding reveals that
people of color are consistently facing the crisis of recessionary levels of
unemployment. Unemployed people cannot contribute to the economy in
essential ways like taxes and consumption.
Unemployment for Young Workers of Color

Workers like Leo Shipman between the ages of 20 and 24 who are new to the labor force
feel the sting of the recession sharply. “Right now, if you don’t have any trade skills, and
you don’t know anything but the automotive industry, there’s not much you can do,” said
Shipman. “It’s hard already for the people who’ve been there for years, and they look at me
and say there’s nothing they can do for me right now.”
Fig. 4. Unemployment for Young Workers by Race, 1977-2009.

35 33.6
Periods of Recession in the US

30
25
23.0
21.6 Black
20
16.0
Latino
15 13.9 14.7 15.0
12.5
White
10 8.6
7.1
6.6
6.7
5
1977 1983 1990 1999 2006 March
Source: Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009 2009
*Note: Young workers defined as full-time employees between ages 20-24. Unemployment rates are taken from seasonally-adjusted
monthly data for March of each year.
Unemployment rates for young adults are higher across races than the
general population (see Figure 4). But as is the case with unemployment in
general, young people of color face significantly higher rates of unemployment,
and that disparity is consistent over time. From 1977 to 2009, the highest rate of
unemployment for white young adults, 13.9% in 1983, does not reach the lowest
rate for Black young adults, 14.3% in 2001. While educational attainment helps
to decrease unemployment levels, in 2005 Blacks with a high school education
or some college education were actually unemployed at higher rates than whites
without a high school diploma.20
Underemployment
While many have lost their jobs altogether, others are underemployed.
Underemployment more accurately accounts for labor market decline because
it also includes part-time workers who want full-time jobs (“involuntary” part-time
workers) and jobless workers who want a job but have stopped actively seeking
employment (“marginally attached” workers).”21 In a recession, the number of
underemployed people increases, yet they remain ineligible for unemployment
insurance. In December 2008, over 21 million workers were underemployed,
up more than 55% from December 2007.22 And just as people of color are
unemployed at higher rates, they are also underemployed at higher rates. In
You find a job but you 2008, as the recession was just beginning to be acknowledged, 8.7% of whites
only get a few hours were underemployed, compared with 16.3% of Blacks and 15.2% of Latinos. In
of work a day and you March 2009, overall underemployment rates were just beginning to edge up to
are unable to support levels that people of color experienced last year.
your family. Indeed, people of color have been underemployed at rates higher than whites
for years.23
• In the past 15 years, Blacks have faced underemployment rates at least
twice those of whites in all but four years.
• Latinos have faced underemployment rates 1.5 times white
underemployment in all but five years.
• Asians and Pacific Islanders were underemployed at a rate higher than
whites in all but the last four years.
Racial Job Segregation
Austin, Texas resident Dominga Hurtado paints houses for a living. Hurtado, who recently
became documented, immigrated to Austin from Mexico in 2001 with two of her five
children. The others stay with family in Mexico, and she sends what she can to support them.
Putting food on the table for her family in the U.S. is hard enough, and sending remittances
is proving almost impossible.
“They pay you a salary per house,” said Hurtado. “But they aren’t selling a lot of houses,
and the prices are falling. When they sell the house for less they pay us less.” For a job that
might have paid $400 a few years ago, Hurtado now makes $300; instead of earning $2000
a month, she makes about $900. With $400 due in rent for her trailer plus the cost of food,
bills, transportation and the money she tries to send to her family in Mexico, $900 is far
short of what she needs. It amounts to $10,800 a year, less than one-third of a living wage for
a family of three in Austin24 and 59% percent of the poverty threshold for a family of three.25
Unless there is more work, Hurtado is facing economic disaster. Because she is underemployed
she cannot collect unemployment insurance.
The economy has pummeled the construction industry, and people like
Hurtado and others in the building trades are finding themselves unemployed
and underemployed. Unemployment in construction hit 21.4% in February,
and underemployment is much higher.26 A reported 11% of Latinos make their
living in the construction industry (see Figure 5). The double punch of the burst
housing bubble and the tightening of credit that has reduced new construction
has made building jobs scarce.
The construction sector started declining as early as 2007, and Latinos bear
the brunt of the fall because they rely so heavily on the construction sector for
jobs.27 Overall, construction jobs have fallen by more than one million since
January 2007; in January 2009, another 111,000 jobs were lost.28
Fig. 5. Occupations and Race, April 2009
Total Unemployment= 4.0%

38% 29% 20%
Management, professional, and related occupations
Total Unemployment=8.0%
24% 25% 22%
Sales and office occupations
ITY
UR
EC
Total Unemployment=8.7%
TS
16% 26% 25%

EN
YM
Service occupations
PLO
EM
11% 14% 17% Total Unemployment=13.6% white
Production, transportation, and material moving occupations
Black
10% 6% 17% Total Unemployment= 15.3% Latino

Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations
Source: Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009 *Note: Data not seasonally adjusted.
Job segregation persists in the United States, and people of color are relegated
to more precarious, low-wage jobs. Workers of color are heavily concentrated
in the service sector, according to ARC’s analysis of the Current Population
Survey. Meanwhile, whites are disproportionately represented in the most stable
constellation of occupations, including management and professional jobs. More
than 38% of whites work in management, professional and related occupations.
This is flexible and creative work that pays well and is reserved for a small fraction
of workers in the new global economy.
Job Segregation and Low-Wage Work

Kasia 29, a 33-year-old immigrant living in New York City, works at the Duane Reade
pharmacy part-time as a cashier. She worked as a housekeeper for years before getting the
pharmacy job and hopes to move into a higher pay grade. “I have a goal to be a bank teller,”
she said. “This is a minimum-wage job, and I cannot stay there, but I get some customer
service skills and cashier experience.”
Kasia receives food stamps and Medicaid and lives in public housing. “I am still looking for
work because I don’t make enough. I am looking all over, but it can’t be more than one hour
away, it’s too far, and I have to pick up my children from school. I don’t have enough time
with my kids.”
In addition to lost work opportunities and wages in construction,

manufacturing jobs are declining in the U.S., having moved to the Global
South where labor costs less, in part because worker protections are rare. The
economy is increasingly reliant on service-related jobs, where almost a quarter
of workers of color make their living (see Figure 6). These jobs are largely not
unionized or otherwise protected. Before the recession, people in low-wage
work, disproportionately people of color, struggled to make ends meet. This
is especially true for women of color, who experience both gender and racial
discrimination, immigrants of color, who face inequity and precarious legal status,
and many young people of color, particularly young Black men, who often are
thwarted by the racial stereotypes of employers.
Fig. 6. Median Weekly Earnings by Occupation and Race, April 2009
38% 29% 20%

$1,046
Management, professional, and related occupations
10% 6% 17%
$730
Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations
24% 25% 22%

$622 white
Sales and office occupations
Black
11% 14% 17%
MO V I N G T R U CK
$597
Latino
Production, transportation, and material moving occupations
16% 26% 25%

$457 *NOTE: The occupations are classified according to the 2000 Standard
Service occupations Occupational Classification System (SOC), used by the Census and other
federal statistical agencies to classify over 820 jobs. Data not seasonally
Source: Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009 adjusted. See more at www.bls.gov/soc
People of color are concentrated in jobs with below-average median weekly

earnings. The median weekly earnings for all workers over age 16 is $738. But
You are stuck in
service sector work, where people of color are heavily concentrated, provides
low-wage work in
median weekly earnings of $457–$516 for men and $411 for women.
the service sector
In 2007, before mainstream media outlets and public officials acknowledged
with little chance of
the recession, Black families earned 59 cents, Latino families earned 62 cents,
upward mobility.
and American Indian/Alaska Native families made 59 cents for every dollar in
income earned by a white family. Many Asian groups, particularly Southeast Asian
and Pacific Islander Americans, as well as foreign-born Asians, have an annual
family income that is close to that of Blacks, Latinos and American Indians.30
Low-wage jobs are likely to pay below the poverty line. Poverty in Black and
Latino families in 2007 was 22.1% and 19.7%, respectively. This compared to
5.9% among whites. Among female-headed households, poverty is much higher,
and the racial disparities are even more stark. Almost 44% of single-mother-
headed Black families with children under 18 and 46.6% of single-mother-
headed Latino families with children under 18 were living in poverty, compared
to 29.2 % of similar white families. The disparity results from relegating people of
color, especially women, to low-paying jobs. As we will see below, it also reflects
the inadequacy of income support programs for very poor families.
Fig. 7. Median Weekly Earnings by Race and Gender, 2009

Latino Women $510
Latino Total $545
Latino Men $577
Black Women $559
Black Total $577
Black Men $595
White Women $666
Total White $758
White Men $855
Source: Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009 *Note: Data not seasonally adjusted.
Even when employed in the same sector, people of color earn less than
whites. A recent report released by the Restaurant Opportunity Center of New
York (ROC-NY) found that people of color are disproportionately relegated to
low-paying, “back of the house” and lower-level “front of the house” jobs within
fine dining restaurants in New York City. This is a direct result of institutionalized
forms of racial discrimination that maintain a “racial division of labor,” dramatically
reducing earnings of people of color.31 In fact, workers of color in the restaurant
industry earn 11.6% less than they would if they had the same qualifications
but were white. Immigrant workers with similar qualifications as non-immigrants
face 9.6% lower earnings than native-born restaurant workers, and immigrant
workers of color are even further deprived of equal pay. Woman in the industry
earn 21.8% less than men, and the impact of being a woman of color diminishes
earnings even more.32 In effect, workers of color pay a de facto “race tax.”
Income differences are partially attributed to racial disparities in educational
attainment. Those without high school or college degrees make less than those
who have them. But even when controlling for educational attainment, people
of color make less than equally educated whites (see Figure 8). U.S. Census
data released in April 2009 reveals that people of color, on average, make less
than whites, regardless of educational level.33 In other words, highly educated
employees of color still take home smaller paychecks than comparably educated
white people.
You are less likely

• Blacks with a bachelor’s degree earn an average $46,502 annually, $13,225
to have a higher
less than whites with the same education.
education and even if • Latinos with a bachelor’s degree earn an average $44,696 annually,
you did go to college $15,031 less than whites with the same education.
you’re likely to make • Asians with a bachelor’s degree earn an average $54,451 annually, $5,276
less than a white less than whites with the same education.
person who did not.
Fig. 8. Mean Earnings of Workers by Race and Educational Attainment, 2007

White Black Asian Latino
$80,000 83K 82K
73K
64K
$60,000 60K
54K
47K 45K
$40,000
36K
33K 33K 34K 31K
27K 29K 28K
$20,000 23K 21K 21K
17K
0
Not a High School High School Some College/ Bachelor’s Advanced
Graduate Graduate Associate’s Degree Degree Degree
Source: Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009.
The racial pay gap was more severe for those with high or low levels of
education. Blacks without a high school diploma earn 76 cents to every dollar
earned by similarly educated whites. Blacks with advanced degrees fare about
the same, taking home 77 cents for every white dollar. The pay gap between
people of color and whites narrows for those with some college or an associate’s
degree. Even so, Blacks and Latinos with some college education or an
associate’s degree actually earn less than whites with only a high school degree.
Inequitable Benefits: Discriminatory

Healthcare Access
Edgardo Caban, a 41-year-old man from Puerto Rico, came to the Department of Human
Services office in Providence, Rhode Island with his girlfriend and their daughter. Caban’s
face was creased with lines, and his voice shook as he described the pain in his back, leg,
neck and arms from an on-the-job injury.
“Last time I went to the emergency room, they were telling me that I have bone
deterioration and arthritis in my spine, and I’m in constant pain. I need medical
treatment.” But Caban, who has numerous jobs washing cars and doing construction, does
not receive employer-based medical care and does not qualify for Medicaid because his
income just surpasses the eligibility limit. Caban receives a deal on housing because he helps
his elderly landlord with housework, but because of the pain he’s not always able to do what
she needs. “I owe her rent,” said Caban. “This month we’re almost on our way out, almost
homeless out in the street. Basically, it’s cold out there.”
Low-wage jobs offer few benefits to employees. Nationally, 18% of people of

color have retirement accounts, compared to 43.4% of whites.34 They are also
less likely to be insured but more likely to be employed in highly physical work
You don’t receive like construction, where injuries are more likely.35 In 2007, while 10.4% of white
employer-based adults were uninsured, 19.4% of Blacks, 18.7% of Asians and 32.1% of Latinos
healthcare and you had no insurance−either private, employer-based or government-sponsored. This
don’t qualify for compounds preexisting levels of health disparities among communities of color
Medicaid. A family caused by residential segregation, lacking access to healthcare, institutional
member dies because barriers to healthful lifestyles and the prevalence of health hazards like
she is not insured. manufacturing pollutants and other toxins found more commonly in communities
of color. Going without insurance can be devastating for families.
Nine-year-old Marcellus and his grandmother, Gina Owens, packed into a van with eight
other members of the Washington Community Action Network, a statewide grassroots policy
organization, and left Seattle, Washington for Olympia, the state’s capitol. They were on their
way to advocate for expanded healthcare that includes immigrants and to protest proposed cuts
to the state’s income assistance program. On a rainy January day, the group of several hundred
people marched from a church to the state house.
Healthcare is an urgent personal issue for this Alaska Native and Filipino family. In 2006,
Marcellus’s mother was diagnosed with a pulmonary disease. She had been working as a
manager at a fast food restaurant and had healthcare benefits for the first time. But when she
began missing more and more work for medical treatment, she was fired and lost her coverage.
Her health soon declined. “We went to the ER,” said Owens. “But the treatment there was a
lot less than it would have been had she had health insurance.” She went into the hospital a
second time but did not recover. She passed away soon after.
“Marcellus is supposed to be thinking about having fun in school and playing, but he just
wants to talk about the issues that took his mother away,” said his grandmother.
“My mom inspired me to talk to people,” said Marcellus. “I think it’s important for people to
have equal healthcare. If she had healthcare she’d be walking today.”
Structural and Institutional Roots of Racial Inequities in Work
These deep disparities do not emerge out of a vacuum−they result from a set
of institutional policies and practices that collectively block people of color from
opportunity and help to foment racial disparities that contribute to overall and
growing levels of inequality in the United States.
The country is firmly rooted in the ideal of fairness and opportunity. But
real and persistent institutional barriers turn the ideal into an empty idea.
Discrimination, inadequate worker protections, barriers to employment for people
with criminal records, deunionization, insufficient educational opportunities and
an inadequate safety net contribute to levels of racial inequality that fly in the face
of our national self-image.
Discriminatory Hiring and Promotion

In a shrinking job market in which people of color are unemployed in higher
numbers and work in the hardest-hit sectors, racial discrimination in hiring and
employment decisions can mean the difference between making it and not. It is
also one factor that has contributed to deep racial inequalities in the economy
as people of color are pushed into low-paying jobs and blocked from upward
mobility. Now more than ever, we need urgently to remove barriers to good jobs
and uphold labor standards and anti-discrimination laws.
Tanya Alina,36 a 19-year-old Latina, reported that she faces discrimination all the time
in New York City when she is looking for a job. Alina is working toward her GED and
recently became independent after aging out of foster care. “My biggest barriers seem to
be my age and the color of my skin,” she said. A GED could help her get a higher−paying
job, and a college education would do a lot toward that end. Indeed, completing a college
degree generates an average $1 million more in lifetime earnings.37 But discrimination
blocks her path.
Alina recalled a recent experience: “I went to an interview at a movie theater, and a

kid that worked there told me the guy wasn’t going to hire because he only wants to hire
young, white, eye-candy girls.” Her experience illuminates the compounding nature of
gender and racial discrimination. “I feel angry, anxious and upset a lot. I have no one to
talk to, so I keep it to myself.” 38
Harvard University researchers have found that racially biased decisions often
occur subconsciously.39 While many employers do not intend to discriminate,
implicit racial bias, racial assumptions and stereotypes become routine, and
discrimination becomes institutionalized. Yet anti-discrimination laws require that
conscious intent be demonstrated before one can seek recourse.
Discrimination is cumulative−that is, it is not simply an event that occurs and
then ends. When discrimination occurs repeatedly, in multiple parts of a person’s
life, the effects snowball. In employment specifically, job discrimination that keeps
people of color out of the best jobs affects workers’ ability to gain experience
and credentials necessary for advancement. Discrimination is cumulative in an
historical sense, as well. Discrimination that explicitly excluded people of color
from certain occupations and access to homeownership−discussed elsewhere
in this report−has meant that current generations of people of color are dealt an
uneven hand from the onset, inheriting less wealth and social capital.
The Restaurant Opportunity Center of New York found that people of color
are less likely than white people with equal qualifications and credentials to be
hired for high-paying restaurant jobs or to be promoted or even called back
after an interview. People of color, the report finds, are 58.6% as likely as equally
qualified white applicants to be offered a job, and white applicants were much
less likely to have their credentials and past experience questioned and probed
You go to an interview by an interviewer.40
but the employer Employers often cited workers’ accents as a reason that they could not be
won’t hire you hired for waiter positions. However, these same employers were eager to hire
because he says waiters with European accents. The decisions are therefore not explicitly racist
he’ll only hire “young, but based on implicit, subjective and informal decisions about applicants’
white, eye-candy girls.” suitability. White workers, the report finds, hold over two-thirds of the high-paying,
front-of-the-house jobs.41
Employment Barriers: Incarceration, Reentry

and Recovery
Vincent L. W., a slim, 46-year-old Black man with a smooth face and a pressed plaid shirt,
can’t find work in Detroit. Adding to the impact of the abysmal labor market, Vincent
is marked by a 25-year-old breaking and entering felony conviction that follows him
everywhere. His record blocks stable employment and makes him constantly vulnerable to
discrimination.
At a diner a block away from the temporary job center where we met him, Vincent explained:
“On the applications, it always states EOE, equal opportunity employer, no one will be
discriminated against.” But, despite work experience and a persistence that keeps him waiting
from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. in a Detroit winter in an unheated temporary job center, he has not
been able to get a stable job for a long time, and the reason is pretty clear. When he does find
work, it most often pays a minimum wage−$7.40 in Michigan—and his criminal record
provides a pretext for firing him quickly.
At the end of 2007, as the country was just reckoning with the coming recession, Vincent had
a job as a janitor in Detroit. He had been with the company for almost three months, but five
days before he would have become eligible for full-time hire and benefits, his employer ran a
criminal background check through a private company and told Vincent to pack up.
Vincent, who is homeless, didn’t know where he would find the money to pay the bus fare
back to his brother’s house, where he sleeps on the couch. “You are never stabilized, and
behind these actions you find yourself homeless or living with a relative.” Vincent’s partner is
pregnant, and they hope to move into a home together, but he says he’ll keep sleeping on his
brother’s couch until he can help support the family.
Employers say that they can’t hire people with criminal records because of
liability and safety issues, but in fact the decision not to hire people with records
is in large part a race-based practice. Indeed, Black men who have never been
incarcerated make less on average and are less likely to be called back
for a job than white men with criminal records. The compounding effect of
criminal background checks, racially disproportionate rates of incarceration and
discrimination shackles communities of color economically.42
For millions of formerly incarcerated men and women their record could mark
them for the rest of their lives, although almost two-thirds were convicted of non-
violent (property and drug) crimes. Vincent is among the 20% of all adults who have
been incarcerated and face legal and social barriers to employment as a result.43
When people with records do find work, it is often unstable and low-wage
work. According to testimony delivered to Congress by Harvard University
sociologist Bruce Western, “Incarceration channels men into informal, secondary
labor market jobs that offer little economic stability or upward mobility.”44 In
You face barriers to Illinois for example, the median hourly wage of someone released from prison
employment because a year ago was $9.60 compared to $15.55 for the average worker in the state.45
of a past criminal The compounding effect of racial discrimination, mass incarceration and barriers
conviction that you to employment helps to create a population of workers who may be fired at will,
thought was history. denied equal opportunity and pushed to the lowest rungs of the labor force.
But it shows up In 2004, 80% of large employers conducted background checks.46 Studies
when your employer show that up to 60% of employers would not consider hiring someone released
runs a criminal from prison or jail.47 According to Devah Pager, Professor of Sociology at
background check. Princeton University, employers use information about people’s criminal
record as “a screening mechanism” before even considering an applicant’s

credentials.48 “As a result, ex-prisoners are one-half to one-third as likely to
receive initial consideration from employers as equivalent applicants without
criminal records.”49
The practice overwhelmingly impacts people of color for a number of reasons.
Being black in America today is The first and simplest explanation is that people of color are more likely to be
just about the same as having incarcerated, largely as a result of the targeting and profiling of communities of
a felony conviction in terms of color in the “war on drugs.”50 While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and
one’s chances of finding a job. 36 is behind bars, the rate is one in nine among Black men in that age range.51
Forty-eight percent of those released from jails and prisons are Black, and
25% are Latino.52 While 1% of the total population is American Indian, they make
up 3% of the prison population. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
has recognized that because people of color are incarcerated at such
disproportionate rates, “an employer’s policy or practice of excluding individuals
from employment on the basis of their conviction records has an adverse impact
on [African American and Latino workers]...”53
A second major reason that criminal histories serve disproportionately as a
barrier to employment for people of color is the compound effect of preexisting
racial discrimination and background checks. According to Pager, who
conducted an extensive paired-match test to measure the impact of criminal
records on employment, “When people think of Black men they think of a
criminal. It affects the way Black men are treated in the labor market. In fact,
Black testers in our study were likely to be asked up front if they have a criminal
record, while whites were rarely asked, so you can see that there are expectations
about Black applicants that shape the decisions.”
You don’t even get According to Pager’s research, the cumulative impact of discrimination and
called back after an background checks is that Blacks with criminal records are less than half as
interview. An equally likely to be called back by potential employers as compared to equally qualified
qualified white person white applicants (see Figure 9). Even more striking is that 14% of Blacks in her
who was interviewed controlled study without a criminal record received a callback−less than the 17%
right before you gets of whites with a criminal record. The conclusion: “Being black in America today
the job. is just about the same as having a felony conviction in terms of one’s chances
of finding a job.”54
Fig. 9. Racial Impact of a Criminal Record on

Interview Callbacks, 2003
35
34%
30
25
20
15 17%
Percentage
14% Black
10 White
5
5%
0
Criminal Record No Criminal Record
Source: Devah Pager. “The Mark of a Criminal Record”, American Journal of Sociology.
Vol. 108, No. 5 (March 2003). Figure 6, p. 958.
The impact on communities of color is enormous. According to studies,

joblessness in some cities among formerly incarcerated people a year after
being released is approximately 75-80%−three times the level among the same
population before incarceration (see Figure 10).55 Barriers to employment for
people with criminal histories compound preexisting roadblocks to stable
employment among the same population, including low educational attainment,
lack of hard skills, little employment history and thin social networks. These
policies and practices make reentry an uphill battle, negating the criminal justice
system’s putative aim of rehabilitating prisoners. In fact, people with jobs after
incarceration are much less likely to return to jail or prison after release.
Fig. 10. Jobless Rate for Prisoners and

Non-Prisoners by Race, 1980 and 2000
40
32
27
30
20
14
17
Non-Prison
Prison
13 12
11
10
5.1 4.5
2.2
0.7 1.6
0
1980 2000 1980 2000 1980 2000
White Black Latino
Source: Bruce Western. 2006. Punishment and Inequality in America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Figure 4.1, p. 90.
One 28-year-old Black man from Little Rock, Arkansas explained that his drug
felony conviction means that there is “a revolving door back to prison. People
are going back to jail because they get out here and suffer without a job. I could
go sell drugs; there are no other options. It’s a systematic thing, it’s profiling, it’s
discrimination.”
Some states have imposed restrictions on allowing employers to discriminate
on the basis of criminal background, and federal EEOC guidelines also require
employers to ensure that criminal background checks are, in fact, “job related.”
Illinois recently passed a law allowing judges to seal or expunge criminal records
for people with misdemeanor and non-violent felony records. But the new law
has gone largely unenforced, and many who should have had their records
expunged are still finding that upon application, their criminal record resurfaces.56
One major impediment to the sealing of records is the flourishing and
unregulated private background check industry that sells information about
criminal history to whoever will pay. Criminal background information is made
available as public information by states and the federal government and also by
private, multi-billion-dollar, fee-based background check companies.
Walking out of the diner and back to the temporary work center where we met him, Vincent said,
“I look at myself every day that I get up, and I actually wonder if it’s going to be the day that
things totally fall apart. It’s real hurtful to know that your chances are so broke down to zero.”
Your boss makes

you work overtime
without compensation
and threatens to
call immigration if
you complain.
Immigrants and Exploitative Low-Wage Work
Four years ago, Maria Cecilia Osorio immigrated to Nogales, Arizona from Mexico with her
husband and two children, now 8 and 12. Her husband came to the U.S. to work, and Osorio
followed. But, she said, “We separated because of domestic violence.” Osorio left her husband
and took her children to a family shelter.
Nogales, a border town of just over 20,000, relies on cross-border commerce and produce
factories to drive its economy. Many businesses in Arizona’s border region have closed.One
clothing store manager reported she had lost most of her business and had cut back employee
hours by up to 75%. The city has been hit hard by the recession and just as hard by the
increasing militarization of the border
Even before the recession, Osorio struggled with abuse and exploitation as a worker. She
worked in a produce factory where she said employees were paid just $6 an hour, less than the
minimum wage. “They discriminate a lot when you don’t have papers,” she said. “They did
everything but crack the whip to make us work.” Osorio recalled that the boss would threaten
to call the border patrol if workers did not do exactly as they were told.
She lost that job when the produce factory closed. Like other undocumented workers, she was
ineligible for unemployment insurance or federal income assistance. She soon got a job at a
restaurant earning $3.50 an hour. But they would not give her the hours she requested, and
when business was slow she only got paid $20 a day, sometimes earning less than $200 a
month. When the restaurant closed, she had no job at all. “I am in crisis right now,” she said.
Osorio is struggling to stay housed but fears having to return to the homeless shelter or worse,
to her abusive ex-husband.
Inadequate protections for immigrant workers allow exploitative practices

to flourish. In this recession, some employers have violated employment laws
to take advantage of the surplus of unemployed workers seeking jobs. Rather
than regulating work, raising the minimum wage and enforcing labor standards,
the federal government has funneled money into immigration enforcement.
Spending continues to rise. The annual budget of the U.S. Border Patrol was $1.6
billion in FY 2006, an increase of 332% since 1993.57 U.S. Customs and Border
Protection (CBP), the parent agency of the Border Patrol within the Department
of Homeland Security, had their budget increased from $6 billion to $9.3 billion
between FY 2004 and FY2008.
Immigration enforcement policies that purport to keep immigrants out can
have an unanticipated consequence of hurting local economies. Immigrants
comprise a significant portion of the labor pool in many states. The Fiscal Policy
Institute found that foreign-born residents were responsible for a quarter of
New York state’s economy, or $229 billion, in 2006.58 Deporting workers who
contribute to our economy or deterring them from making homes here will drain
the country of both workers and consumers.
By contrast, legalizing undocumented immigrants would be a boon to the
economy. The William C. Velasquez Institute at UCLA makes the case that
legalizing undocumented people is the most effective and immediate economic
stimulus option. Legalization would create $4.5 to $5.4 billion in net tax revenue,
almost one million new jobs and would generate $30-36 billion in personal
wealth.59 When the country invests in immigration enforcement while neglecting
to protect immigrants, we create a population of easily exploitable workers.
Inadequate Enforcement of Workplace Protections

Standards for minimum wage and safe work environments have been
inadequately enforced, which, in turn, encourages “low-road” employers to
flourish. In fact, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently found
that the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division “frequently responded
inadequately to complaints, leaving low-wage workers vulnerable to wage theft.”60
Weak and underenforced federal regulations leave many of the country’s most
marginalized workers at the mercy of abusive employers. With the economy in
crisis, workers may be particularly fearful about asserting their rights without
some assurance that the law is on their side—and immigrants are especially
at risk. Immigrant workers are burdened by threats of deportation, fear of
immigration workplace raids and increasing collaboration between local law
enforcement agencies and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Although immigration status does not preclude basic rights to a minimum
wage, overtime pay and safe working conditions, the Center for American
Progress reported in September 2008: “Latino workers are frequent victims of
employer wage theft, and often work in industries [like construction and other
manual labor jobs] where wage theft is rampant. Wage theft causes an estimated
$19 billion in losses every year.”
Dominga Hurtado arrived at the January meeting of the Workers Defense Project, a workers’
rights organization in Austin, Texas, along with her sister and a friend. The room was filled with
50 Latino construction workers, many of whom had faced wage theft and other abuses. Hurtado
became a member of the Workers Defense Project last year when an employer refused to pay her
and her sister for a job they had been hired to do on contract.
A year ago, Hurtado and her sister were hired by an Austin contractor to paint houses, but after
working for several weeks the women suddenly stopped getting paid. When they tried to get their
money, the contractor responded that it had received no payment from the developer, so Hurtado
and her sister would not either. The company told them to keep working anyway. Because she
and the others were undocumented, her employer thought they would be cowed by the fear of
deportation. Instead, the sisters approached the Workers Defense Project and negotiated with the
company for payment, but many others continue to work without pay.
Wage theft is often facilitated by the practice of misclassifying workers. A

significant number of construction firms and their low-cost contractors wrongfully
classify workers as self-employed, independent contractors when they should
be waged or salaried employees. The use of subcontractors and the practice
of misclassifying of employees make it possible for employers to avoid paying
obligatory benefits and payroll taxes.
More than half of the Latino construction workers surveyed by the Workers
Defense Project were paid in cash or by personal check, as opposed to 94% of
white construction workers who received their payment in a company check.
Paying Latino workers “under the table” or as informal subcontractors, combined
with discrepancies in pay practices, indicate a tendency in the industry to assume
all Latino workers are both undocumented and exploitable.
The public cost of misclassification is enormous. A report on the economic
impact of this practice in New York State found that between 2002 and 2005 the
annual average unreported taxable wages and underreported unemployment
insurance taxes was just under $4.5 billion. In the midst of a recession, the
practice denies states needed revenue61 and denies workers access to
unemployment insurance, workers compensation and employer-based benefits.
Misplacing Blame
You hear all the time As fears about the job market grow, the impulse to blame the problem of
that the bad economy joblessness on immigrants will grow, as well. Immediately after the passage of
is your fault, a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the restrictionist group
your irresponsibility. Center for Immigration Studies−an organization that according to Republican
Congressman Chris Cannon was “set up…to take an analytical approach to
immigration from a Republican point of view so that they can give cover to
Republicans who oppose immigration for other reasons”62−attacked the bill
because potential funds might help to employ undocumented immigrants in
construction jobs. These groups argue that the biggest threat to citizens’ jobs is
posed by undocumented immigrants.
But research indicates that in the construction industry, among others, the
deterioration of wages and standards over the last 20 to 30 years followed
widespread de-unionization. As these jobs became less desirable and less
protected by unions after the construction industry moved to actively dismantle
union density, white workers left for other occupations with higher union density,
and the positions were filled with a population of new immigrants.63 “[I]mmigrant
employment” in these sectors, according to Ruth Milkman, professor of sociology
at UCLA, “was more a consequence than a cause of the change.”64 Now, the
increasing precariousness of construction work affects not only immigrant
workers but all workers.
Using immigration enforcement to deal with economic stressors will only push
immigrant workers further into the shadows, make them more exploitable and
thereby diminish wages and standards for everyone. Protection of all workers’
rights, regardless of race and national origin, and legalization of immigrant
workers are a significant part of the way out of the nation’s economic woes.
No Safety Net: The Impact of Welfare Reform
Shanniah Connolly65, a 23-year-old Black woman from Providence, Rhode Island, rode the
bus to the Department of Human Services with her 4-year-old daughter to try to get childcare
assistance. On a freezing February day, the office was filled with people bundled up in winter
coats. Her daughter ran up and down the stairway to the administrative offices, past the
metal detectors and two uniformed guards at the front entrance and into her mother’s arms.
Connolly handed her daughter a children’s book, and the child sat on her mother’s lap and
flipped the pages.
Connolly is temporarily living in her brother’s living room, but she is not sure how long she
will be welcome. She cannot afford an apartment for her and her daughter. She has received
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash assistance intermittently since her
daughter was born. The money she gets each month helps her pay for the basics.
Connolly estimates that she will be able to live with her brother for another two months, and
if she has not found a job by then−a likely prospect considering that Rhode Island has one of
the highest unemployment rates in the country−she will have to rely entirely on the $448 she
receives in cash assistance and the $323 she receives in food stamps, a total of $771 a month.
That constitutes an annual income of $9,252. But in July, the state of Rhode Island will
implement a new policy that cuts welfare recipients off of the welfare rolls if they have received
assistance for two years. “I’ll have nowhere to live and no way to pay,” she said. “I have to
have a job by then.”
Until recently, Connolly earned $8 an hour working at a diner, but the business folded, and
she was let go. A discrepancy in her employer’s account of the layoff made her ineligible for
unemployment insurance, and she has hit a wall. “I’ve been applying all over the place for
work, I have been going online, been going to a lot of places, Wal-mart, K-mart. There’s no
work,” she said.
When she lost her job, Connolly lost her childcare assistance, because under the state’s rules,
welfare recipients receive childcare assistance only if they are working a certain number of hours.
Even if she does find a job like the last one she had, her wages will likely be insufficient to
support her and her daughter. She is enrolled in a GED program and thinks that the program
should suffice as her welfare work activity, because without a high school diploma her chances
of securing employment that pays above a minimum wage are significantly diminished.
As more people are relegated to low-wage work, the system of social

You and your baby
live on your brother’s support once in place is not strong enough. Welfare reform under the Clinton
couch. In 4 months administration in 1996 significantly restricted access to income support
you will lose cash programs. The effect has been to leave many poor families with no support at
assistance because all. In a recession like this, the erosion of the safety net threatens to push more
you’ll be over the families into deep poverty.
lifetime limit. AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children), the a 60-year-old federal
entitlement to income assistance, was replaced with TANF (Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families), a time-limited, state-run program that cuts people
off after 60 months total of lifetime assistance and ties cash assistance to work
requirements. States have imposed varying welfare policies, some adopting
stricter requirements and, like Rhode Island, shorter time limits than the federal
mandate. Advocates of welfare reform in both major political parties claimed that
welfare was a failed policy reliant on an inefficient bureaucracy that entrenched
families in poverty. Welfare reform, they said, would make families independent.
Parents would work and lift their families out of poverty. Ironically AFDC
succeeded better than TANF at achieving these stated goals.
According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, in 2005, 690,000
single mothers and 1.3 million children lived in families where the parents neither
worked nor received cash income support from the government. This is a stark
increase from the period before welfare reform, when the number of mothers
falling into this “disconnected” category was 303,000. 66 Just before welfare
reform, AFDC pulled 64% of children out of deep poverty (defined as under 50%
of the poverty level). In 2005, TANF lifted far fewer, just 23%, a drop of more
than 40%.67 Overall, between 2000 and 2004, 774,000 more children fell into
poverty.68 In addition, under TANF only about 4 out of 10 people who are eligible
receive assistance.69
With few available jobs for most people and even fewer for people who, like
95% of adult TANF recipients, have only a high school education or less, the
shortage of income assistance means that people have nothing to catch them.
As one woman in Arizona said, “There’s no jobs at all, and I have no income
coming in. We’re the single parents out here, and we have no income coming in.”
In fact, as unemployment is on the rise, TANF caseloads are actually declining in
many states.70 Limitations on receipt of cash assistance are likely to result in a
significant increase in deep poverty, homelessness and families who cannot
stay together. 71
Race and Welfare Reform

Similarly to blaming poor immigrants for the drastic decline in good jobs in
the U.S., welfare reform blamed poverty on the poor. The dismantling of the
safety net relied on the use of racialized rhetoric and stereotypes about people
of color. Social welfare programs, especially cash assistance, were cast as
only benefiting families of color, and welfare recipients were portrayed as lazy,
dishonest and pathologically dependent on the government. Policy makers
attributed destitution to poor people’s lack of initiative and ambition−a “pathology
of dependency”−and argued that welfare itself sustained the problem of poverty.
In order for this framing to succeed, the general public had to imagine recipients
as women of color, even though the majority of welfare recipients had always
been white children. Far from lacking initiative, most families receiving welfare at
present remain poor because women of color are relegated to work that does not
pay enough to house, feed and clothe their children, and because the work of
caregiving, of raising children, is not legitimized in this public assistance model.
The pejorative portrayal of poor people of color, coupled with the growing
movement for deregulation and shrinking government responsibility for the social
good, toppled the welfare entitlement and opened space for a set of policies that
were meant to regulate welfare recipients rather than alleviate poverty.72 Applied
Research Center policy analysis revealed that laws were crafted based on deeply
held stereotypes about women of color. Work requirements were meant to correct
supposed “laziness,” sanctions, the idea that people of color are undisciplined
You go to the Human and dishonest. Time limits were a response to what was labeled “pathological
Services office to see dependence.” Access to higher education was restricted as a result of stereotypes
about getting child about women of color being more suited to service than academics.73
care support and food The Applied Research Center found that states with more people of color
stamps but the case were more likely to impose stricter sanctions.74 And even if states do not impose
worker tells you he stricter formal sanctions, many people of color are met with scrutiny and disbelief
does not believe you despite their need. Many talk about being pushed off welfare even when they
really need help. were eligible by biased caseworkers.
Samantha Claveria75, 30, a Filipina American from central California who served for a year
in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, went through several spells of homelessness along with her
5-year-old daughter. She recently arrived at the end of her 60-month lifetime limit, but because
her daughter has a debilitating condition, Claveria was supposed to be eligible for an extension
for people caring for disabled family members. But, she says, when they went to her daughter’s
doctor to get a letter confirming the disability, he told her: “You’re already sucking money out
of the state, and I’m not going to help you get the exemption.” Claveria reported, “The doctors
acted like I was trying to make her sick to get an exemption.”
Stories like this are common among welfare recipients of color who are
You lose cash confronted by case workers, or in this case a doctor, who can make life-altering
assistance because decisions based on racially loaded notions of who deserves assistance.
the state government
says that you are
not in compliance
with the welfare Work Requirements, Low-wage Work and the
work requirements Recession
even though you are
looking for a job. Even before the economic downturn, most families receiving cash income
assistance were unable to support themselves completely with that income
and were relegated to low-wage and unstable jobs.76 While welfare reform was
supposed to lead to self-sufficiency, for most who have reached their lifetime
limit the available work does not pay enough to support a family. According to
Diana Spatz, Director of Lifetime (Low Income Families’ Empowerment through
Education), many people who have timed out of cash assistance were working
when they timed out, which means that they were making little enough to be
eligible. The implication of this, said Spatz, is that “low-wage work does not get
people off welfare.” Nonetheless, welfare recipients are forced into low-wage
jobs to meet eligibility requirements. Work that does not pay a living wage
dooms people to perpetual poverty, and failing to help welfare recipients get
an education dooms them to poverty wages. As time limits and sanctions push
families off the welfare caseloads, many are left with nothing at all.
Even as states see their unemployment rates rise and therefore have welfare
recipients who can’t find jobs, some poor people have been deemed out of
compliance with rigid work requirements. According to recipients we interviewed
in various states, some are being sanctioned off the welfare rolls for failure to find
employment. Although officially people should not be purged from the rolls if
they are engaged in job search activities, some have been because of the rigidity
of the rules or the whim of caseload workers.
Cathy Paquette, president of Local 2882 public employees’ union in
Providence Rhode Island, said that losing a job can trigger losing cash
assistance. “If someone gets laid off for no fault of their own, and they are
supposed to be working 20 hours a week to be eligible for assistance, then down
the road they would get sanctioned.” Paquette added: “They have to participate
in the program at the Department of Labor and Training, and they could be
sanctioned if they do not participate.” With all the pressures that come with losing
a job and trying to hold a family together, as well as expensive and unreliable
public transportation, cars that need money for gas, insurance and maintenance
that must be spent on food instead, making it to a training program every day is
harder than the rules allow for.
Farrah Hassan77, an Arab American woman in Dearborn, Michigan, is in her early 30s
and has four children between the ages of 12 and 17. Last school year, Hassan was laid off
with a number of other school employees due to budget cuts. Unable to find any work, her
unemployment benefits ran out, and she applied for cash assistance. Hassan started receiving
about $600 a month. But, after just two months, a letter arrived telling her she was being
sanctioned. “They told me, ‘you have to find a job.’ But I went to look, and there aren’t
any jobs.” Nonetheless, she was sanctioned for being out of compliance with the state’s work
requirement and is now living with no income at all. Along with her welfare check, she lost
her childcare assistance and now, with four children who need to be brought to four different
places, prioritizing a job search, even if there were jobs available, is proving impossible.
A caseworker at a non-profit social service organization where we met Hassan said that the
work requirements are unreasonable in times like these, because people like Hassan are set
up to fail. “You can’t expect someone to spend 20 hours a week looking for a job,” said the
caseworker, who preferred her name not be used, “when she has so much else happening−four
kids and a house in foreclosure.”
When Hassan went to the state’s welfare office to try to figure out what had happened to her
cash assistance, an employee there told her that he had no idea why she was removed from
the rolls. When she explained that she could not feed and house her family without help,
the caseworker told her to stop complaining and that he did not believe that Hassan really
needed help.
Conclusion
The declining quality of work opportunities, barriers to employment, exploitation

and the failure of income support programs to protect families from debilitating
poverty impact everyone. While the country’s increasing rates of incarceration
impact communities of color disproportionately, our willingness to punish
formerly imprisoned people indefinitely affects all of our lives negatively, as
we make it impossible for them to contribute to our common wellbeing. The
marginalization of poor immigrants of color helps to pull down labor standards
for everyone, making work increasingly precarious for all workers. In the larger
economic picture, the creation of populations who are unemployed and
underemployed at far higher rates than the societal norm, and who remain locked
out of stable employment, contributes to the country’s overall levels of inequality.
As discussed above, high levels of inequality are predictive of the overall lack of
a robust national economy. Removing barriers to equal employment for whole
populations of people is one very obvious way to begin dismantling inequality in
employment and help rebuild the national economy.
In this recession, poverty could grow massively. As the economic crisis
continues, deep recession could push 25% of middle-class families into more
serious financial distress. The danger is higher for families of color, with 33%
of Blacks and 41% of Latinos at risk of falling out of the middle class and
into poverty.78 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, eight of the 10
occupations projected to generate the most jobs by 2016 are low-wage jobs in
the service sector.79 These are precarious jobs that will make more and more
workers extremely vulnerable to even small economic fluctuations. Creating jobs
that do not allow a family to sustain itself is an illusory solution, not progress. Our
economic recovery must be built on equitable policies that place the needs of
communities at the core.
Ch a p t e r
3 Housing Discrimination,
Race and Wealth
Sandra Hines, a 55-year-old Black woman with a deep, commanding voice, remembers when
last year the neighbors called to say that the sheriff ’s deputies had arrived at her family’s Detroit
home−the one she moved in to at 18 with her parents and two younger sisters. “Our foreclosure
was very brutal,” she said. “They busted up my mother’s antique furniture, our belongings that
we had accumulated for 40 years.” The sheriff padlocked the door, and the Hines family was
evicted. “We lost the home our parents bought,” she said. “Now we’ve lost all of it.”
When Hines’s middle sister lost her job at General Motors last year, “the family fell on hard
times, and we refinanced the house,” said Hines. “But we had one of those ARMs [adjustable
rate mortgage], and the payment almost doubled. My sister wasn’t able to keep it up.” They
received a notice informing them of their pending foreclosure.
After their eviction, Hines’s two sisters and her teenage niece moved into a rental. But shortly
after, their landlord defaulted on his mortgage, and that house went into foreclosure, too. “We
are facing double foreclosure,” she said.
For many families, home ownership is the source of equity and wealth
to pass on to future generations. As foreclosures displace families and destabilize
neighborhoods, this foundation is broken. In March 2009 alone, over 340,000
homes went into foreclosure, a 46% increase from March 2008.80 This chapter
shows that communities of color were targeted disproportionately by predatory
subprime lending and bear the brunt of the subprime foreclosure epidemic.
Eventually, the crisis spread out from communities to affect not only homeowners
of all colors, but the entire housing and banking industries.
As a result of broad deregulation of the financial services industry in the
late 1990s, most notably the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial
Services Modernization Act, new relationships between banks, insurance
companies, lenders and Wall Street investors were made legal. Within a context
of unregulated lending, subprime loans appeared endlessly profitable, and
banks took increasingly larger risks. This deregulation is now understood to have
allowed massive proliferation of securitized subprime assets.81 However, these
assets were not secure and, in fact, the irresponsible and aggressive nature
of their sale indicated that they were bound for failure. As borrowers began to
default en masse and foreclosure rates rose in 2006, the on-paper assets turned
into real-dollar liabilities. Wall Street, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were flush
Your family is sold a with valueless securities. Housing sales peaked while mortgages continued to
subprime refinancing balloon. Bank lending of all kinds came to a standstill and the housing market
loan. The monthly decline accelerated. Businesses were denied credit and found it increasingly
payments double and difficult to sell products. Layoffs ensued, and consumption decreased, pushing
you get behind on the economy into recession.
payments. The house As early as 2000, aggressive and unregulated mortgage companies began to
you’ve had in your originate record numbers of high-cost loans. Between 1994 and 2005 the volume
family for 40 years of subprime loans grew from $35 billion to more than $600 billion.82 However,
goes into foreclosure the sale of these loans was not evenly distributed. Long histories of discriminatory
and you are evicted. lending practices that denied people of color access to traditional lending services
left these communities vulnerable become the first hit by financial predation.
“Communities of color were the initial people targeted [with predatory lending],
the lab rats,” according to Mark Winston-Griffith, executive director of the Drum
Major Institute, a New York City-based public policy think tank. “Now the effect
has gone far beyond them to other middle- and low-income communities.”
The impact of these irresponsible financial practices is now clear as all
Americans are threatened by the effects if the recession. While communities of
color have been struck with the hardest blow, it is clear that had the practice
of predatory lending been regulated and prevented before communities of
color were attacked, the whole country might see very different circumstances
today. As we engage in an economic recovery plan, Americans are faced with a
fundamental choice about the shape they want their economy to take. Clearly,
economic growth is possible with great inequality at its base – that is essentially
what we have had. A new economy that is both stable and growing will require
our increased commitment to racial and economic equity.
Foreclosure and Wealth

Losing a home means being traumatically uprooted. The impact of foreclosures
on neighborhoods is deep. The crisis has caused a reversal in what was a
significant gain in home ownership in communities of color over the past decade
and has now caused an increase in vacancies, as well as many concomitant
destabilizers like increased crime and continued community disinvestment,
unpaid property taxes and declining neighborhood home values.83
But the most damaging and lasting consequence of foreclosure is that
families are stripped of their carefully and laboriously accumulated wealth.
Indeed, homeownership is the central vehicle of wealth accumulation for almost
56% of subprime loans were all families in the United States. Little could do more to upend the deeply held
refinancing loans.They were sold to American attachment to the idea of upward mobility. “We lost our foundation as
families, like the Hines family, who a family,” said Hines. “I want to know what happened to the American dream?
already had equity in their homes. It’s an American nightmare, and it’s two or three nightmares if you are African
American.” Indeed, “We are a society that has a discourse of mobility and
everyone moving forward that for the most part in the past 30 years has been
an illusion,” said Jose Garcia, Associate Director for Research at Demos, a New
York-based public policy organization.
Troublingly, the divide has grown over time. Between 1992 and 2007, the
dollar difference between median family wealth for whites and people of color
has increased (see Figure 11).
Fig. 11. Racial Wealth Divide, 1992-2007

170
200
White
150
101
100
50
28
17
People of Color
0
1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007
Source: Survey of Consumer Finance, Federal Reserve, 2007
Most Americans who have accumulated wealth are watching their savings,
stocks and other assets dwindle. In 2008, total household net worth fell 18%.84
People of color, who have lower net family worth than whites in general, are more
likely to have a high percentage of their wealth concentrated in their homes.
Home equity comprises the biggest asset for all families, but for families of color,
this is especially true. For this reason, the foreclosure crisis and the declining
value of homes is devastating to these communities.
For those who have long owned their homes, foreclosure means lost stability
In 2004, for every dollar in because for many, a home was their only form of wealth. While many subprime
median wealth that white loans are sold to new homebuyers, in 2006, 56% of subprime loans were
families held, Blacks had a refinancing loans.85 They were sold to families, like the Hines family, who
dime and Latinos a nickel. already had equity in their homes.
United for a Fair Economy, a Boston-based advocacy organization, estimates
that the loss of wealth in communities of color resulting from foreclosures
will be greater than any since Reconstruction.86 Indeed, the foreclosure crisis
has brought Black and Latino homeownership rates back to levels before the
homeownership boom of the past decade.
Families of color already hold fewer assets than white families, from the value
of their cars and homes to their retirement accounts. In 2004, for every dollar
in median wealth that white families held, Blacks had a dime and Latinos a
nickel (see Figure 12). The disparities are even more glaring when families lose
their homes. Subtracting home equity from Latino and Black household net
worth, Blacks have a penny and Latino families even less than a penny for every
dollar of white non-home wealth (see Figure 12). Because the foreclosures have
hit people of color disproportionately hard, the racial wealth divide is growing.
Fig. 12. Median Wealth by Race, 2004

Median Wealth Median Nonhome Worth
$1.00 $1.00
White White
$0.10 $0.01
Black Black
$0.00
$0.05
Latino
Latino
*Note: Wealth defined as total net worth for a household, *Note: Nonhome wealth defined as the difference between net
deflated by the Consumer Price Index. worth and home equity, deflated by the Consumer Price Index.
Source: Edward N. Wolff. June 2007. Recent Trends in Household Wealth in the U.S.: Rising Debt and the Middle Class Squeeze. The Levy Economics
Institute, Bard College, Working Paper No. 502.
For households of color who aspire to homeownership the impact could

All of the wealth that reverberate far beyond the immediate crisis. Wilhelmina Leigh of the Joint Center
your family has carefully for Political and Economic Studies said: “It does spell a period of lessened
accumulated in your wealth, a period perhaps of lessened creativity [for Black families].”
home disappears when “For people who are just starting out, a home is a visible sign of moving
the property forecloses. forward...It’s those visible signs and visible statements that can make a difference
to a group of people who have not historically had opportunities to move
forward,” said Leigh. Foreclosures drain communities of not only equity but also
self-confidence, she said. “Here there were people trying to do well and move
forward, and they get kicked in the teeth.”
The long-term effect will be debilitating as families of color will have less to
pass on to their children and will therefore have less stability and opportunity
for upward mobility. Many families who would have used their home equity to
help pay for retirement or college tuition, for example, will no longer have that
option. According to Philip Day, president of the National Association of Student
Financial Aid Administrators, “With so many people up against the wall with
declining home values, the issue of using home equity loans for tuition is almost
rendered moot.”87
Mrs. Mallory, a 63-year-old Black woman who lives near Sandra Hines in Detroit, lost her
home to foreclosure as well. “Our home is what we have,” said Mallory. She corrected herself:
“It’s what we had.”
Mallory, who is on a fixed income of $960 a month, had tried to take out a $4,000 home equity
loan to pay for a new furnace for her house, which she had lived in for more than 19 years and
had almost finished paying for. But a broker at a loan company in her neighborhood pushed her
to take out a $40,000 loan instead, insisting that she could use the money for other things and
that she would have no problem paying it back. The loan payments started at $500 a month,
and for the first six payments it stayed there. All of a sudden, said Mallory, “it jumped up to
$1600 a month. We can’t pay that.” Soon her house was put into foreclosure.
Mallory moved into her daughter’s house. Now that house—the down payment of which was
a gift from Mallory’s husband before he died— is also in trouble as well since her daughter
was laid off and missed some payments. “My husband bought our daughter that house.” said
Mallory. The family is facing the loss of all of their wealth, and Mrs. Mallory has nothing to
pass to her grandson.
For families who have long owned their homes, foreclosure can mean the
total annihilation of accumulated wealth; for those new to homeownership, the
loss means a massive setback in the trajectory of economic stability. The impact
goes beyond economic loss. As families are forced out of their homes, they are
displaced from the support networks on which they rely for things like childcare,
transportation and food. One scholar has named the effect of this loss of home
and stability “root shock” or “the traumatic stress reaction to the destruction of all
or part of one’s emotional ecosystem.”88
In a recession, wealth serves as a safety net to catch people when their
income is interrupted. Because people of color have less wealth and have lost
much of what they had as a result of the foreclosure epidemic, many are left
without recourse and with increasing debt as the recession deepens. Further,
people of color typically are less established within wealthy families and
networks.
Fig. 13. Median Assets for Families by Race, 2007

200
Primary Residence 180
100
Business equity 50
Bonds 96
23
Retirement accounts 53
25
20
Certificates of deposit 10 White
People of Color
Stocks 8 19
0 50 100 150 200
Thousands of 2007 Dollars

Source: Survey of Consumer Finance, Federal Reserves, 2007
*Note: Assets only counted for households with holdings.
With no accumulated
wealth, you lose your job
and face a dangerous
fall into poverty.
At a food kitchen in a Detroit church, Daniel Duane Spyker, a balding white man in his
mid 50s with a college education, is among the many people we met across the country
who never imagined they’d be in such a situation. Spyker lost his job as a non-faculty staff
member at a local college almost three years ago and has been unable to find a job since. “I
used to be able to vacation, go to the opera. It is overwhelming,” he said.
“But,” Spyker acknowledged, “the reason I have survived is because I have a wealthy
brother-in-law who works as a certified public accountant. Without him, I’m not sure I’d be
alive now.” Because of his access to networks of wealth, he has been able to survive for several
years without a job. His brother-in-law has been the difference between having housing and
being on the street.
By contrast, Aline and her husband, Dion89, a young couple of color in Providence, Rhode
Island, recently bought a house, enjoying the American Dream. One winter afternoon, they
found themselves in the Human Services office applying for state healthcare for their three
children after Dion lost his job as a public school teacher. “It’s never been this bad,” said
Dion. “I’ve never been out of work before.” Dion’s unemployment benefits ran out, and
Aline was forced to stop sending money to her family in Senegal and recently withdrew from
training to become a nurse. They did not expect to qualify for state healthcare because Aline’s
hourly wage as a nurses’ assistant put them just above the eligibility limit, though the cost
of Aline’s employer-sponsored plan is too much for them. With all their savings gone, almost
no equity in their home and no other assets or wealth, they are living day-to-day on the edge
of disaster. They worry about the prospect of delinquency on their mortgage, paying back
Dion’s graduate school loans and affording the basics like clothing. Unless Dion finds a job
immediately, the family is facing a descent from the middle class into poverty.
Race and Foreclosure: The Facts on the Ground
Rhetoric about “borrower irresponsibility” suggests falsely that the foreclosure crisis
resulted from a wave of bad decisions on the part of unwise borrowers. A true
understanding of what has happened in communities of color requires examining
histories that made these communities vulnerable to irresponsible and, some
believe, illegal lending practices. Market predation made those most vulnerable into
casualties of unregulated greed, and because of preexisting inequities, histories of
Indeed, over one-third (35%) segregation and redlining, people of color are suffering most.
of subprime loans were sold According to a 2001 Housing and Urban Development (HUD) report, the
to people who could have boom in subprime lending allowed “the dream of home ownership [to] become
qualified for a traditional, fixed- a nightmare because of predatory or abusive lending practices.”90. Major banks
rate, prime loan. and financial institutions placed high demand on lenders to sell as many of
these products as possible so that the loans could be repackaged and sold to
investors. This process, called securitization, allowed capital markets to finance
and profit from subprime mortgage lending.”91 According to Andrew Cuomo,
then the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, “Someone is financing
these companies to begin with. Someone is buying these mortgages, and it is
Wall Street.”92
High-cost loans were marketed in aggressive, sometimes predatory ways
to poor communities of color. They were frequently sold through direct broker
solicitation and were characterized by higher interest rates.93 Low barriers
to acceptance also characterize these financial products, regardless of the
applicants’ credit history or ability to make monthly payments. Some loans were
sold to people who should not have qualified. The CEO of bankrupt mortgage
lender Ownit, in an interview with the New York Times, admitted to “loosening
lending standards but says he did so reluctantly and under pressure from his
investors, particularly Merrill Lynch, which wanted more loans to package into
lucrative securities.”94 He explained that he was instructed to offer more “low-
documentation” loans for which the borrower’s income is not verified. If he
refused to make these loans, the lending company would forgo profits.95 As
everyone up and down the chain focused on making a profit, from Wall Street
investors’ returns to mortgage brokers’ yield spread premiums96, there was little
focus on the actual performance of loans being made.
Perhaps even more pernicious, many who could have qualified for prime
loans were sold high-cost loans instead. Indeed, over one-third (35%) of
subprime loans were sold to people who could have qualified for a traditional,
fixed-rate, prime loan.97 Wall Street profiteers amassed fortunes while ordinary
people risked poverty without even knowing it.
The common denominator in stories from all over the country from first-time
homebuyers and people looking to refinance is that they were sold a financial
product that pushed them into debilitating debt and made payment impossible
for some borrowers. As Louise Alston, one elderly woman from Port St. Lucie,
Florida wrote:98
I was pushed into a subprime loan with little knowledge. I trusted my broker, and he
was stabbing my husband and me in the back…We asked for a FHA (Fair Housing
Administration fixed rate mortgage loan), [but] he said ‘I’ll take care of it−you are going to
get your home.’ He said it would be a no income verification loan. [He] didn’t explain what
prepaid penalty was, [and he] said we could [re]finance in a year. Indymac was the mortgage
company. The realty company moved right after settlement.
Total subprime, or high–cost, lending increased from $20 billion nationwide in

1993 to $150 billion in 1998. By 2006, total subprime originations had increased
to as much as $634 billion a year.99 The profit boom based on subprime lending
relied on borrowers of color. In 2006, 53.3% of home purchase loans issued
to Black borrowers were high-cost, as were 46.2% of home purchase loans

to Latino borrowers. By contrast, only 17.7 % of home purchase loans made
to white borrowers were high-cost.100 The number of people receiving high-
cost loans in 2006 was up significantly from 2004, when high-cost loans sold
to Blacks, Latinos and whites made up 32.4%, 20.3% and 8.7% of all loans
respectively.101
Fig. 14. Detroit Foreclosures by Race, 2008

Sylvan
Lake
Clinton
Troy
Sterling Heights
Bloomfield
Township
St. Clair Shores

Warren
Lathrup
Village
Hazel
Park
Southfield
Livonia
Detroit Grosse Pointe Park
Redford
Dearborn
Heights
Dearborn Foreclosure Index
0-2
River Rouge
Inkster 2-8
Wayne 8-18
Allen Park
18-45
Romulus Lincoln Park
45-100
Percentage People of Color

Detroit Metro Southgate
Wayne Co Airport
over 75% 50-75% 25-50% 0-25%
Source: Compiled by the Foreclosure Response project, from data supplied by McDash Analytics, October 2008;
and population data from the U.S. Census 2007.
*Note: Loan counts from McDash Analytics are weighted to reflect estimated mortgaged unit counts from the U.S. Census and
the share of prime and subprime mortgages from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s March 2008 National Delinquency Survey.
Detroit, where both Hines and Mallory live, is in a state with one of the highest
foreclosure rates in the country (see Figure 14).102 Like in most cities across the
country, Detroit neighborhoods with high proportions of people of color have
Blacks, Latinos, American the highest foreclosure rates. The highest number of foreclosures in the city
Indians and in some places and state are concentrated in the areas to the north and west of the downtown
Asians are more likely to get a area, neighborhoods historically settled by Blacks. Downtown Detroit is mostly
high-cost loan than whites even industrial, filled with warehouses and a few rental apartments, and as a result,
when controlling for income and foreclosures rates are lower there. The wave of foreclosure filings expanded to
credit scores. Indeed, race-based engulf surrounding suburbs like Grosse Pointe that are traditionally wealthier
differences in lending often grow and white.103 But foreclosures in these communities, which local media attributed
as income increases. to layoffs among suburban families and surging mortgage payments, occurred
later, after communities of color had been silently ravaged by massive losses.
Lenders claim that people of color pay higher rates because these communities
are poorer or have lower credit scores and therefore pose a greater risk. But
research shows that Blacks, Latinos, American Indians and in some places
Asians are more likely to get a high-cost loan than whites even when controlling
for income and credit scores.104 Indeed, race-based differences in lending often
grow as income increases.105 Middle- and upper-income Blacks, for example,
were at least twice as likely as middle- and upper-income whites to receive high-
cost loans in most metropolitan areas.106 Strikingly, a 2006 study of 130 cities finds
that middle- and upper-income Black and Latino borrowers were actually more
likely than low-income white borrowers to get a high-cost loan.107
That middle- and upper-income people of color were hit harder by subprime
loans than lower-income whites means that the disproportionate rate of subprime
lending cannot be explained solely in geographic or class terms. Race was a
powerful determining factor in the targeting of subprime loans.
It’s Structural, It’s Historical
It is not coincidental that communities of color have been so ravaged by

For years your predatory lending and later a torrent of foreclosures. As Wall Street manipulators
community was pushed for mortgage lenders to sell subprime loans, which could be immediately
denied access to securitized and sold at great profits, lenders targeted vulnerable populations with
traditional mortgage these aggressive products.
lending services The vulnerability of communities of color is built on long histories of
discrimination, disparate treatment and neglect that have marked the
neighborhoods where they live. This history fomented the conditions that
made these neighborhoods prime ground for non-traditional, unregulated and
subprime lending. Policies like redlining that once explicitly excluded people of
color from homeownership denied these communities access to wealth-building
opportunity and supported segregation. These effects were then compounded
by the next generation’s policies and practices that filled these neighborhoods
with second-tier financial services and pegged them with high-cost loans. When
laws were passed in the 1970s to address racism in housing, it did not take
long before deregulation allowed the lending industry to circumvent existing
fair lending laws and begin preying on communities of color. The process of
circumvention, fueled by deregulation, eventually led to the boom of predatory,
subprime lending that has now crippled the economy.
Redlining
The history of housing discrimination is deep. The current crisis is an extension of
past policies like redlining that kept people of color from achieving home ownership
and increased segregation, creating pockets of severe and racialized poverty.
Before the New Deal, home loans required large down payments of up to
40% and had very short terms, which meant that only the wealthiest could buy
The Cumulative Effect of Housing Discrimination
New Deal Era Laws, 1933

Milestone
The Federal Housing
Administration was established
Pre-New Deal, early 1920s to regulate lending and expand
access to home loans during
Milestone the Great Depression. Residential security maps created by
People of color segregated in urban areas the FHA administered Home Owner Loan Corp. color-coded
through racial restrictions (known as restrictive neighborhoods of color in red, signifying that they posed a
covenants). Home loans required large down high risk and should be excluded from mortgage lending.
payments of up to 40% and had short terms. Racial Impact
Family of color living in these red-coded, urban areas still
Racial Impact could not get a mortgage to buy a house.
Family of color denied
access to loans and could
not afford to buy a home.
1944
Milestone
G.I. Bill enacted to help returning
1968-1977 veterans access low cost loans to
buy homes. But, people of color
Milestone were denied access to loans because
Due to demands by the civil rights and social justice of racist practices in the mortgage
movements, government enacted Fair Housing Act lending industry.
(1968), Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974), Home
Racial Impact
Mortgage Disclosure Act (1975) and Community
Family of color has a father returning
Reinvestment Act (CRA) (1977) which banned racial
from war. They apply for a mortgage
discrimination in lending.
under the G.I. Bill but are denied. In
the mid 1980s, by the time most of the
Racial Impact
G.I. Bill mortgages had matured, the
Family finally able to secure a
median net worth of white families was
mortgage to buy their home. They
$39,135. In stark contrast, the median
pay off the mortgage 30 years later.
net worth of Black households was
$3,397, just 9% of white holdings.
1999 2007
Milestone Milestone
Financial Modernization Act allowed for new Subprime crisis.
arrangements between banks, securities
firms, and insurance companies and
Racial Impact
facilitated the creation and promotion of
The family refinances their
subprime loans, exempt from CRA.
home in order to repair the
Racial Impact roof. The broker sells them
Family’s neighborhood is flooded with a high cost loan, with no explanation even though they
non-traditional unregulated lenders that could have qualified for a prime loan. Family cannot
originate millions of high cost loans in afford to pay their monthly mortgage payments. They
communities of color across the country. are evicted and their home foreclosed.
property.108 In response to the Depression era’s increasing foreclosures and

diminishing credit, the government acted.
In 1934, Congress passed the National Housing Act and established the
Redlining Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The agency insured private mortgage
loans, in effect removing risk for the lender. FHA paradigmatically changed
Redlining refers to the place- lending by making down payments affordable and extending payment terms to
based practice of denying financial 30-year periods. The effect was to widely broaden the availability of loans in the
services, such as lending, to entire United States. Along with the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC), tasked
neighborhoods or areas based on with saving homeowners in urban areas from forced sale and foreclosure during
their racial or ethnic compositions. the Depression by providing refinancing options and low-interest loans, many
families avoided foreclosure and were able to buy homes, creating an opportunity
to accumulate intergenerational wealth.109
But this opportunity was not available to everyone. When deciding who would
be eligible, HOLC administrators made broad judgments about neighborhoods
rather than employing objective economic criteria. The agency created its own
rating system and coded all neighborhoods with a high population of Blacks
as “hazardous,” or high-risk, and therefore ineligible for their services.110 Loans
were restricted by these explicit criteria that created and maintained all-white
neighborhoods in new suburbs and denied loans to neighborhoods of color and
integrated neighborhoods. The government helped white families buy homes
while explicitly denying access to potential homeowners of color.
Prior to New Deal financing programs, realtors were responsible for the
bulk of mortgage lending, and their guidelines prohibited any transactions by
realtors that would result in integration. These realtors became the driving force
for suburban development mortgage lending and contributed a great deal to
FHA underwriting guidelines.111 Government programs then adopted preexisting
practices of a racist real estate industry. An FHA manual from 1936 read: “A
change in social or racial occupancy generally leads to instability and a reduction
in values.”112 The explicit criteria for lending to neighborhoods where people of
color live—redlining— and restrictive racial covenants—local agreements in white
neighborhoods excluding people of color—cemented neighborhood segregation
by institutionalizing racial categories and preexisting race-based lending practices
into New Deal programs. A long history of redlining has led to the continuation of
neighborhood racial segregation, diminishing housing values and resulting in an
absence of financial institutions in communities of color.
Federal guidelines became ubiquitous and were circulated back to the private
lending market, where they became standard practice. By the time the G.I. Bill,
for example, made it possible for thousands of returning veterans to access low-
cost loans and achieve homeownership, banks and private financial institutions
restricted access to loans along racial lines. Taking their lead from the federal
government, lenders denied people of color access to this massive wealth-building
opportunity. In the mid 1980s, by the time most of the G.I. Bill mortgages had
matured, the median net worth of white families was $39,135. In stark contrast, the
median net worth of Black households was $3,397, just 9% of white holdings.113
After widespread urban uprisings in the 1960s and ‘70s, the federal
government was forced to address the practices and the effects of redlining. In
1968, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act, followed in the ‘70s by the Equal
Credit Opportunity Act, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and the Community
Reinvestment Act (CRA), which collectively banned racial discrimination in
lending, required the equal distribution of lending services and mandated
reporting on loan-making practices.114
Your neighborhood fills
up with unregulated
Reverse Redlining
The passage of the CRA in 1977 was meant to address problems of racially
subprime lenders
discriminatory lending practices by requiring traditional financial institutions to
and there are no
offer equal access to lending and other services regardless of class and race. It
traditional lenders in
was meant to ban redlining, facilitate equal distribution of lending services and
the neighborhood.
generate a community development banking system that would serve
low-income communities. Indeed, CRA facilitated trillions of dollars worth of

good loans over the past three decades.
It quickly became clear, however, that while explicit redlining, restrictive
covenants and the overt denial of loans to people of color were no longer
widespread, lending had in no way become equitable. In fact, it was quite the
opposite. Lending in the post-civil rights era housing market has been marked
by a calcified dual housing market in which white people have access to
traditional, 30–year, prime-rate mortgages, while neighborhoods that had once
been deprived of lending services were swarmed with nontraditional, high-cost
mortgage lenders.
A set of laws passed in the 1980s and ‘90s entrenched the dual market and
largely deregulated the housing market, stripping those regulatory mechanisms
that existed to prevent discriminatory lending of their teeth.115 As financial
institutions were increasingly unchecked, regulatory and consumer protection
mechanisms were largely disregarded and made irrelevant. The deregulation
of the last two decades effectively eliminated interest rate ceilings for many
home loans and preempted state-level restrictions on loan features like balloon
payments, variable rates and teaser rates. Ultimately, the Financial Services
Modernization Act of 1999 allowed for new formations and affiliations among
banks, securities firms and insurance companies, which facilitated the mass
securitization of subprime loans and increased the profitability of their sale.
The vast majority of loans that have now led to foreclosure were not regulated
by the CRA.
According to a nation-wide Because CRA applies only to banks and federally chartered depositories and
study, in Los Angeles in not to credit unions, independent mortgage bankers, insurers or an array of other
2006, the market share loanmakers that account for over half of the mortgage loans, CRA lost much of
controlled by high-cost its power as new kinds of lending practices emerged.116
lenders in neighborhoods with According to the National Training and Information Center, Citigroup, for
predominantly populations example, was able to channel subprime and predatory products through affiliated
of color was 9.5 times higher loan-making companies without disclosing that many of the subprime loans
than the market shares in were channeled into communities of color.117 The mass emergence of subprime
neighborhoods with few lenders that fell outside of CRA regulatory boundaries helped to facilitate the
residents of color. growth of predatory lending and allowed for subprime predatory lenders to set
up shop in low-income communities of color, where there was little competition
from traditional FHA lending institutions. FHA failed to develop safe products to
allow at-risk or marginal borrowers to participate in the changing market–thus
vulnerable populations turned to subprime lending, which on the surface
appeared more responsive to their needs. As investment banks saw continued
profit potential, the reservoir of funds for home loans appeared unlimited, and
their numbers increased at unprecedented rates.
In summary, policies instituted in the 1930s fomented a racially divided system
that prevails today, though in different form. While explicit redlining is no longer
legal, decades of these practices laid the foundation for what is now called
reverse redlining—the targeting of vulnerable communities with high-cost loans.
Practices and policies that once kept mainstream banking out of communities
of color also helped to create a climate ready for high-cost, unregulated financial
institutions to flood these neighborhoods.118 High-interest loans became the
de facto means of acquisition for people of color, even those who could have
qualified for prime loans. Those populations that had been long abandoned were
most vulnerable to financial predation and exploitation and as a result have been
stripped of much of their wealth and stability.
Without competition from banks and traditional lending institutions, payday
lenders, rent-to-own businesses and subprime lenders have filled these cities.
According to a nationwide study, in Los Angeles in 2006, the market share
controlled by high-cost lenders in neighborhoods with predominantly
populations of color was 9.5 times higher than the market shares in
neighborhoods with few residents of color. This disproportionality was also seen
in lending markets in Chicago, Boston and New York City, among other cities.119
Renters
Sabrina Otis, 35, was swept up in the foreclosure crisis as a renter. Otis, who moved to
Cleveland in 2001 to escape an abusive ex-spouse, was skirting the edge of crisis well
before foreclosures consumed her city. Unable to find adequate housing, she lost her
children temporarily to foster care. Two winters ago, though, the family finally settled into
a Section 8-subsidized house in Lakewood, a Cleveland suburb. When the landlord fell
behind on the maintenance of the property and it began sliding into foreclosure, the family
was uprooted again.
After living with friends and relatives for some months, Otis and her children found
another house in the same neighborhood, only to be put out again when the owner, amid
the housing market collapse, suddenly sought to sell the property and evicted the tenants.
Though Otis received a new housing voucher, the family spent another nine months
bouncing between friends and relatives while searching for an affordable home. Otis
said renters like her have been blindsided by the foreclosure crisis. “We are in a drive-by
shooting. We got shot. We had nothing to do with this,” she said. “And we have no recourse
to get anyone to be responsible.”
One-fifth of foreclosures nationally have been in non-owner-occupied

After the foreclosure,
buildings.120 Because these buildings house multiple families, 40% of all those
you rent a small
evicted by foreclosure were living in rental units.121 Reported trends from some
apartment but the
parts of the country are higher.122 In New York City, 60% of foreclosure filings
landlord defaults
in 2007 were in buildings with more than one unit.123 Section 8 recipients
on the mortgage
like Sabrina Otis are supposedly protected from such summary evictions, but
payments and the
many have been pushed out anyway.124 Renters who are not Section 8 recipients
building enters into
have few, if any, protections. In most cases, leases do not have to be respected,
foreclosure. You
and renters can be evicted without prior notice. Some states have “just cause”
are evicted.
provisions, which help to protect renters from eviction, but most allow renters
to be evicted with little process. According to a recent report by the National
Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and the National Low Income Housing
Coalition: “Many tenants, even those who may be current in their rent payments
and in full compliance with their lease terms, face an increased risk of housing
loss as a direct consequence of foreclosure proceedings.”125
Rent Affordability and Public Housing

Before and during the foreclosure crisis, many low-income people, especially
people of color, struggled to find affordable housing. The rush over the past
decade to invest capital in homes and residential development also led
to encroachment on low-income communities of color in the form of new
apartments and condominiums built on the former sites of rent-stabilized or
publicly subsidized homes. Without adequate affordable housing, public housing
and housing subsidies, many families have nowhere to go.
For people working for low wages and those on fixed incomes, rent can be
unaffordable. Nowhere in the United States can someone making a minimum
wage afford a decent apartment. According to the National Low Income
Housing Coalition, it takes a wage of about $17.84 an hour, as a national average,
to afford a modest, two-bedroom apartment at 30 percent of income (see Figure
15).126 According to the American Community Survey, the median gross rent rose
2.7 percent in real terms from 2001 to 2006, while the median renter income
fell by 8.4 percent (from over $31,600 to $29,000). As a result, nearly half of all
renters paid more than 30 percent of their incomes for housing in 2006, and
about a quarter—nearly nine million households—spent more than 50 percent
(see Figure 16).127
Fig. 15. Housing Wage and Race in U.S., 2009
WA ND
MT ME
VT
OR NH
WY SD MN
ID NY
WI MA
NV MI
CA IA PA
IN OH NJ
NE
CO WV
IL DE
UT KS MD
VA
MO KY
AZ NC
AR TN
OK SC
GA
NM
LA High Density of
AL
TX MS People of Color
FL
AK Medium Density of
People of Color
Low Density of
People of Color
HI
Housing Wage
Above $17 Between $13-$17 Under $13
Source: Housing wage calculated by the National Low Income Housing Coalition based on data from the HUD, U.S. Census, U.S. Department of Labor, and the
Social Security Administration. Racial demographics by state obtained from the Population Estimates of the Census in 2008.
*Note: Two-bedroom housing wage represents the hourly wage that a household must earn (working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year) in order to afford the
Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at 30% of income.
William Perry, 36, a Black man who wears his hair in cornrows, works at the Wal-Mart
Super Center adjacent to the mixed-income housing development River Garden in New
Orleans. Despite the goal of building neighborhoods of economic opportunity, the Wal-Mart
is still the only retailer and employer in the area.
Perry has been working at Wal-Mart for two years, since he came back to New Orleans after
living in Baton Rouge for a year after Hurricane Katrina. He walks with a pronounced
limp and has suffered from muscular dystrophy since he was seven years old. Perry relies
on Medicaid for healthcare, and because Wal-Mart doesn’t allow him sick days, he said he
struggles to make it to work every day. “Some days, I don’t know how I’m going to get out of
bed,” he acknowledged, but said he had to work to help support his five children.
Perry was born in the St. Thomas housing projects that were demolished to make way for
River Garden. As a former resident of St. Thomas, he is eligible for a subsidized apartment
in the mixed-income development, but his application is still making its way through the
process. Perry currently rents a $1,000 two-bedroom apartment with his girlfriend further
down the river−a lot to pay on the average Wal-Mart annual earnings of around $17,000.
Before the storm, the apartment would have cost closer to $500. Perry would prefer to live
in River Garden to save on gas and walk to work.
In post-Katrina New Orleans, lack of affordable housing remains one of the

With few available main challenges in rebuilding and a significant barrier to the return of its low-
options you are forced income residents, the majority of whom are Black, like Perry. The city suffered
to pay more than half damage to more than 76,000 rental units–over half of its rental housing−after
of your income on hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. As of late 2008, there was only enough
rent and go deeper recovery funding allocated to replace 27 percent of these units, according to a
into debt as you try to study by PolicyLink.128
support your kids and Only half of the city’s original population has been able to return. There are
pay for the basics. still over 4,600 displaced families living in FEMA trailers and another 17,000
families depending on vouchers from the Disaster Housing Assistance Program,
according to March 2009 data from the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency.
Across the country, people face a distinct lack of public and affordable
housing. In New York City in November 2008, the number of families entering
homeless shelters was 40 percent higher than in November 2007.129 According to
a report released by CHHAYA Community Development Corporation, a housing
advocacy organization, there are at least 100,000 people who live in illegally
converted housing units in New York City−a necessity because of the distinct
lack of public housing units.130 New York City often evicts people from these units
but does not prioritize creating affordable housing.
Fig. 16. Gross Rent as a Percent of Income, 1989-2007

30%
30%
30%
28%
26%
26%
25%
1989 1994 2000 2004 2007

Source: National Low Income Housing Coalition calculations of Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies (2008) from U.S. Government data
Joseph Aranha’s eviction left him with few options. “When they evicted me, they showed,
up, handed me $30 and told me to go find another place to live. They told me they could
put me in a homeless shelter, but for someone in my condition that’s not an option. Aranha
has been on waiting lists for New York City public housing for 11 years but has been turned
away again and again. “They just tell me that they can’t do anything for me until my name
comes up on the computer.” Often one city agency will send him to another agency, which
will send him back where he started.
Now Aranha, a South Asian journalist who came to the United States 20 years ago, pays
$600 a month for a small room in a house in Queens, far from where he gets medical care
and the community he lived in for most of his time here. He gets food stamps and is eligible
for Medicaid. After rent, he is left with $161 from his Social Security check each month.
“With $161 I have to pay for transportation, all the basics of life, a haircut,” he said. That’s
about $5.29 a day. He cuts back on how often he leaves his apartment, consolidating all
his errands into one day to save on subway fare. Subway fare is pegged to go up from $2 to
$2.25 to make up for transportation budget shortfalls.
According to the Urban Institute: “Because the availability of housing

assistance falls so far short of needs [across the country], waiting lists for public
housing, privately owned subsidized projects, and vouchers are all long.”131 In
Austin, Texas, one family of four at a job search agency told us that they were
facing homelessness if they did not find jobs soon, but when they went to the
housing authority office, they were told that waiting lists for housing assistance
were up to five years. People of color are more likely to need low-income housing
assistance and are struck disproportionately hard by its lack. Especially as more
families face foreclosure, the lack of affordable and subsidized housing options
across the country threatens to push more and more people into homelessness.
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, 1.5 million people are
at risk of becoming homeless over the next two years without intervention.132
Conclusion
As an organizer with the Moratorium Now! Coalition in Detroit, a community group

fighting for a statewide moratorium on foreclosures, Sandra Hines said her activism is
rooted in her understanding that this crisis is historical and structural−that for people of
color, this is not new. “This is like redlining, where they would mark off certain areas in
the city where Black people couldn’t live,” she said. “It’s on a different level now. They are
literally throwing us out of our homes.”
Hines is fighting back. “I don’t want to see what had happened to me and my family
happen to other people,” she said. “We mobilized and organized people who are affected by
foreclosure into an organizing force to demand a moratorium on foreclosures in the state
of Michigan.” Across the country, people are organizing against foreclosure so that families
may stay in their homes.
It is now clear that predatory lending, which flooded the market with toxic
assets, pushed the economy over the edge and into recession. Indeed, the
country might be in a very different position today if it had not been for the
targeting of communities of color with risky, predatory loans. George Goehl,
executive director of the National Training and Information Center noted: “If
there were ever a story that proves that we’re all in this together, the foreclosure
crisis is the epitome of that.” Without addressing the structural factors that
make communities of color vulnerable to predatory lending, foreclosure and
You fight back, homelessness, and without new regulations on financial services and lending
organize in your that simultaneously deal with racial discrimination in the housing market,
community and everyone will remain vulnerable both to financial predators and the kind of
demand equity. economic crisis we are currently experiencing.
Ch a p t e r
4 Conclusion: Moving Forward
As the country moves toward recovery, creates jobs, re-regulates

the economy and builds opportunity, there is a strong impulse to implement
policy that posits that the broadest policies would “lift all boats.” But we cannot
achieve opportunity for all without constructing policy and practice to
address directly the cumulative and compounding causes of racial inequity in
the United States.
Persistent and recurring racial inequity and barriers to opportunity for people
of color were central culprits in the decline of the economy, and the country
ignores these structural flaws at its own peril. Tackling structural racism must be
at the core of the national effort to build a healthy economy.
Key Recommendations:
I. Overarching Policy-making Framework
Expand the use of Racial Equity Impact Assessments for public planning
and policy so that racial inequities can be anticipated and prevented prior to
the adoption of new policies and practices. This will provide a mechanism to
systematically address racial inequities during the policymaking process. Using
Racial Equity Impact Assessments will lead to new economic decisions based
on the needs of communities most vulnerable to economic fluctuations. The past
several decades have been marked by a distinct displacement of these concerns,
and the current economic crisis provides an opportunity to return to policy
centered on the common good. As many historical examples make clear, unless
policy explicitly acknowledges racial impacts, racial inequity will be left intact or
further entrenched.
II. Policies Needed this Year

Over the next several months, the federal government should begin to address
major regulatory and structural flaws in the economy. Communities should be
protected from Wall Street’s “reverse Robin Hoods” who have been stealing from
the poor in order to increase their own wealth, and racial equity must be made a
core component of financial policymaking. As the government moves to re-regulate
and restructure the economy, the needs of ordinary workers−especially workers of
color who have disproportionately been relegated to low-wage jobs and who lack
opportunity for advancement−should be at the core of policymaking.
A. Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) [H.R. 1409, S. 560]−Ensure that all
workers have the right to organize and engage in collective bargaining.
The Employee Free Choice Act would allow workers to decide whether
they want union representation without fear of employer retaliation and
intimidation. The decline of jobs, wages and standards over the past several
decades has corresponded with the decline in union density in the United
States. Passage of EFCA will ensure that workers can freely organize and
pursue opportunity.
B. Community Reinvestment Act Modernization

Congress should expand and modernize the Community Reinvestment
Act so that it applies broadly across the financial services industry and
includes all financial institutions−independent mortgage lenders, mortgage
companies affiliated with banks, credit unions, insurance companies and
other loan-makers.
Further, CRA should address racial disparities in lending explicitly by requiring

race-based evaluation. The practice will help to ensure equitable distribution of
fair financial services across racial lines. CRA should be rigorously implemented.
C. Raise the Minimum Wage and Attach a COLA

In 1938, President Roosevelt called the federal minimum wage “an essential
part of economic recovery.” The minimum wage will increase to $7.25
an hour in July 2009, but this remains far from a living wage, too little for
families to afford basics like housing. Further, the coming increase does not
include a mandatory cost-of-living adjustment and will become outdated
shortly. State and the federal governments should increase the wage to
match the cost of living next year. An annual COLA should be attached.
Congress should also restore the minimum wage for tipped workers—
currently set at $2.13 an hour−back to 60% of the full minimum wage.
D. Immigrant Legalization
Ensure fair treatment and full rights for immigrants by supporting
legalization. The lack of protection for undocumented immigrants impedes
a healthy economy. The perpetual presence of an exploitable category
of workers who are often paid sub-minimum wages and denied labor
protections is catastrophic for both immigrants and all workers. A broad
and equitable legalization law could also provide quick economic stimuli.
According to a report by the William C. Velásquez Institute at UCLA,
legalization would generate $4.5-5.4 billion in net tax revenue.133
E. Green Jobs-Good Jobs

Expand educational access and job training for people who are unemployed
and underemployed, with supports and services for finding good jobs.
States and cities should prioritize and create incentives for “green jobs”
that advance environmental protection, energy conservation and efficiency,
community improvement and an equitable and sustainable economy. These
jobs should be initially targeted toward people of color, especially women
and people with barriers to employment like a previous incarceration.
F. Comprehensive Universal Healthcare

Enact healthcare reform that meets the needs of everyone in the United
States. Congress should pass healthcare reform legislation that guarantees
quality, affordable healthcare for all people living in the U.S., without exception.
This reform should include, but not stop at, universal coverage. It must also
address persistent inequities within the healthcare system, such as inadequate
healthcare infrastructure in communities of color, gaps in language access and
lack of culturally competent and culturally appropriate care.
III. Immediate Actions to Provide Needed Relief

A. Moratorium on Foreclosures
States and the federal government should impose extended moratoria on
foreclosures. Foreclosure moratorium legislation is not a fix-all solution,
since it does not help borrowers saddled with subprime loans adjust the
principal, nor does it increase regulation of the lending industry. But, until
these structural changes are made, foreclosure moratoria are necessary to
prevent displacement.
B. Suspension of TANF Time Limits

States and the federal government should immediately suspend time limits
in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. In the
midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, cutting people off
from income support, the only general assistance program for poor families,
means that more families with children will be pushed into desperate
poverty and homelessness.
C. Moratorium on Workplace Raids and Immediate Termination of 287(g)

program
In the absence of comprehensive, sensible and just immigration policy,
the federal government has dramatically increased punitive immigration
enforcement. Meanwhile, states and cities are increasingly implementing
their own immigration laws. In a recession, these policies threaten to be
particularly destructive. As immigrant workers are targeted with devolved
enforcement of immigration laws without equal enforcement of labor laws,
they remain exploitable. Local enforcement of immigration laws distracts
from law enforcement activities and threatens local economies by making
immigrants more vulnerable to exploitation and less able to participate
as residents and consumers. The federal government should place a
moratorium on punitive immigration enforcement that pushes immigrant
workers into the shadows, and it should terminate the 287(g) local
enforcement program.
D. Expunge Criminal Records/Ban the Box

In a recession, barriers to employment can mean the difference between
sinking and swimming. States should remove one such barrier by
immediately sealing the criminal records of formerly incarcerated people.
tates and cities should also pass Ban the Box initiatives that remove
S
questions about applicants’ criminal records from all applications for public
and publicly contracted employment. All Stimulus-related jobs should be
made equally available by ensuring that criminal background checks do not
block people from employment.
E. Enforce Anti-Discrimination Laws

Ensure that all people are provided equal opportunity and fair treatment
and are not discriminated against on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion,
color, national origin, age, sex, disability, familial status, immigrant status,
sexual identity, gender identity or other characteristics; and ensure that all
anti-discrimination measures are fully implemented and enforced.
he Equal Employment Opportunity Commission should more vigorously

T
enforce Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment
discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
Enforcement will help to prevent racial discrimination and other forms of
discrimination for all workers.
Acknowledgements
Author and Principal Investigator Copy Editor

Seth Wessler Susan Starr
Lead Researcher Project Intern

Yvonne Liu Sean E. Goldhammer
Research Director Additional Research and Writing

Dominique Apollon Michelle Chen
Chanelle Mickell
Art and Design Tram Nguyen
Hatty Lee April Pulliam
Diana Salas
Special thanks to the following people for helpful input or for reading drafts of the report.
Any errors are the sole responsibility of the Applied Research Center:
Seema Agnani C. Nicole Mason

Executive Director, Chhaya CDC Executive Director, Women of Color Policy
Network
Nicholas Bianchi
Research Analyst, National Training and Gwendolyn Mink, PhD.
Information Center Author and Educator, Washington D.C.
Joan Burke Saara Nafici

Director of Advocacy, Loaves & Fishes Garden Apprentice Program Coordinator,
(Sacramento) Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Gary Delgado Danilo Pelletiere

Board Member , Applied Research Center Research Director, National Low Income
Housing Coalition
Maurice Emsellem
Policy Co-Director, National Employment Law Kathy Pettit
Project. Research Associate, Metropolitan, Housing
and Communities Center Urban Institute
Jose Garcia
Associate Director for Research and Policy, Amaad Rivera
Demos Racial Wealth Divide Initiative Leader, United
for a Fair Economy
Marcia Henry
Senior Attorney-Legal Editor, Sargent Shriver Mark Winston-Griffith
National Center on Poverty Law Executive Director, Drum Major Institute
Jesus Hernandez
Department of Sociology, UC Davis
co–releasers
Workers Defense Project, Austin ,TX
Washington Community Action Network
Chhaya CDC, New York City, NY
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)
• St. Louis ACORN
• San Bernadino ACORN
• Sacramento ACORN
• New Orleans ACORN
• Little Rock ACORN
• Fresno ACORN
• Colorado ACORN
• Washington DC ACORN
• Charlotte ACORN
• Allegheny County ACORN
Colorado Progressive Coalition
Connecticut Citizen Action Group (CCAG)
Olneyville Neighborhood Association, Providence, RI
Oregon Action
endnotes
1. Name has been changed. 18. Ibid.
2. Name has been changed. 19. Algernon Austin, “What a recession means for black America,”
Economic Policy Institute, January 18, 2008, www.epi.org/
3. William Easterly, The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ publications/entry/ib241/.
Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 2001). 20. S.Allegretto, J.Bernstein, and L. Mishel, The State of Working
America 2006/2007 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
4. J. Bernstein and L. Mishel, “Economy’s Gains Fail to Reach Most 2007), www.stateofworkingamerica.org/tabfig/04/SWA06_
Workers’ Paychecks,” Economic Policy Institute, September 3, Table4.4.jpg.
2007, www.epi.org/publications/entry/bp195/.
21. Nooshin Mahalia, “Stimulus now! Underemployment at 14-
5. Algernon Austin and Marie T. Mora, “Hispanics and the year high,” Economic Policy Institute, October 15, 2008,
economy: Economic stagnation for Hispanic American workers, www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_
throughout the 2000’s,” Economic Policy Institute, October 31, snapshots_20081015/.
2008, www.epi.org/publications/entry/bp225/.
22. Heidi Shierholz, “Labor market has worst month since
6. Ibid. recession began,” Economic Policy Institute, February 6, 2009,
7. Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and South Carolina. www.epi.org/publications/entry/jobspict_20090206/.
8. Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White (New York: 23. Economic Policy Institute analysis of Current Population
W.W. Norton & Company, 2005). Survey data prepared for the Applied Research Center.
9. Judy Fudge and Rosemary Owens (eds.), Precarious Work, 24. Living Wage Calculator, “Living Wage Calculator for Austin
Women, and the New Economy: The Challenge to Legal Norms County, Texas,” 2009, www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/
(Hart Publishing, 2006). counties/48015.
10. Robert Reich, “The Stimulus: How to Create Jobs Without 25. The poverty measure does not accurately account for the
Them All Going to Skilled Professionals and White Male extent of needs. The poverty measurement falls significantly
Construction Workers,” posted on Robert Reich’s Blog, below the actual cost of living. For a family of four to be
January 08, 2009, robertreich.blogspot.com/2009/01/ considered in poverty they must earn less than $22,050. In
stimulus-how-to-create-jobs-without.html. 2008, the poverty guideline for a family of four accounted
for only 43 percent of a basic family budget. According to
11. Name has been changed. economist Jared Bernstein, “by erroneously excluding those
12. J. Huezo et al., “The State of the Dream 2009: The Silent in need from our measure, we fail to reach millions more who
Depression,” United For a Fair Economy, 2009, www. desperately need the help.”
faireconomy.org/dream. 26. “Industries at a Glance: Construction: NAICS 23,” Bureau of
13. R
. E. Scott, “When giants fall: Shutdown of one or more Labor Statistics, 2009, www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag23.htm
U.S. automakers can eliminate up to 3.3 million U.S. jobs,” 27. Cindy Carcamo, “Job losses more severe among Latino
Economic Policy Institute, December 3, 2008, www.epi.org/ immigrants, study shows,” The Orange County Register,
publications/entry/bp227/. February 22, 2009.
14. Ibid. 28. “Economic News Release: Employment Situation Summary,”
15. L
ouis Aguilar, “Auto woes rock black work force,” The Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009, www.bls.gov/news.release/
Detroit Times, September 27, 2008, www.detnews.com/ empsit.nr0.htm.
article/20081227/AUTO01/812270369. 29. Name has been changed.
C. Dorsey and R. E. Scott, “African Americans are especially at
risk in the auto crisis,” Economic Policy Institute, December 5, 30. “Check the Color Line- Income Report,” Applied Research
2008, www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_ Center, February 2009, www.racewire.org/pdf/2009_
snapshots_20081205/. CheckColorLineIncome.pdf.
16. Mary M. Chapman, “Black Workers Hurt by Detroit’s 31. D

efinition from Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology:
Ills,” New York Times, December 29, 2008, www. An ethnic or racial division of labor exists in a society in
nytimes.com/2008/12/30/business/30detroit. which ethnic or racial groups have distinctive concentrations
html?scp=1&sq=economic%20policy%20institute%20 or specializations in particular lines of work. Ethnic/racial
auto%20workers%20african%20american%2020,000&st=cse. divisions of labor may arise through relatively benign labor
market sorting processes, or they may be the result of
17. National Employment Law Project. “Unemployed in America: systematic acts of bigotry and discrimination, often with state
Job Market, Prospects for Employment, and Impact of sanction. Regardless of how they arise, ethnic/racial divisions
Unemployment on Families and the Unemployed” (New York: of labor can be observed and traced over time, and they can
National Employment Law Project, December 08, 2008).
have measurable effects on social and political dynamics within 51. O

ne in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008,” The Pew Center
societies. on the States, February 2008, www.pewcenteronthestates.org/
report_detail.aspx?id=35904.
32. “The Great Service Divide: Occupational Segregation/
Inequality in the New York City Restaurant Industry,” Restaurant 52. N
ational Employment Law Project, “Employment Rights
Opportunity Center of New York, Marche 31, 2009, www. of Workers with Criminal Records” (New York: National
rocunited.org/files/GREATSERVICEDIVIDE.PDF. Employment Law Project, 2007).
33. Education Attainment in the U.S., 2008, www.census.gov/ 53. Ibid.
population/www/socdemo/educ-attn.html (accessed 5/3/09).
54. D
evah Pager, “Is Racial Discrimination a Thing of the Past?”
34. J. Huezo et al., “The State of the Dream 2009: The Silent Academy Blog, posted on January 11, 2007, blog.aapss.org/
Depression,” United For a Fair Economy, 2009, www. index.cfm?date=1/2007.
faireconomy.org/dream.
55. D
evah Pager, Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an
35. Arne L.Kalleberg, Barbara F. Reskin, and Ken Hudson, “Bad Era of Mass Incarceration (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Jobs in America: Standard and Nonstandard Employment Press, 2009).
Relations and Job Quality in the United States.” American
Sociological Review 65, no.2 (2000): 256-78. 56. Kelly Virella, “It Is Hereby Ordered…” The Chicago Reporter,
March 17, 2009, www.chicagoreporter.com/index.php/c/
36. Name has been Changed Cover%20Stories/d/It_is_Hereby_Ordered%E2%80%A6.
37. “Completing a college degree generates $1 million more 57. “ Money for Nothing: Immigration Enforcement without
in lifetime earnings,” Graduate! Philadelphia, February Immigration Reform Doesn’t Work,” Immigration Policy Center,
5, 2008, www.graduatephiladelphia.org/media/GP_ 2008, www.immigrationpolicy.org/images/File/factcheck/
CollegeAccessCenter_pressrelease.pdf MoneyForNothing05-08.pdf .
38. Interview conducted by the Women of Color Policy Network. 58. “ Working for a Better Life: A Profile of Immigrants in the New
New York University. York State Economy,” Fiscal Policy Institute, 2007, www.
fiscalpolicy.org/immigration.html.
39. Christine Jolls and Cass R. Sunstein, “The Law of Implicit Bias,”
(Harvard Law School John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics 59. Raul Ojeda-Hinojosa, “Economic Stimulus through
and Business Discussion Paper Series, June 5, 2006), 552, lsr. Legalization” William C. Velasquez Institute, 2009, www.wcvi.
nellco.org/harvard/olin/papers/55. org/intermestic_initiatives/immigwhitepaper012309.htm.
40. “The Great Service Divide: Occupational Segregation/ 60. U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Department of Labor:
Inequality in the New York City Restaurant Industry,” Restaurant Wage and Hour Division’s Complaint Intake and Investigative
Opportunity Center of New York, March 31, 2009, www. Processes Leave Low Wage Workers Vulnerable to Wage
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41. Ibid. 61. Linda H. Donahue, James Lamare, and Fred B. Kotler, “The
Cost of Worker Misclassification in New York State” (Ithaca, NY:
42. A. Bernhardt et al., eds., The Gloves-Off Economy: Workplace Cornell University, School of Industrial and Labor Relations,
Standards at the Bottom of America’s Labor Market (Labor and 2007), digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/reports/9/.
Employment Relations Associations) (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 2008). 62. “Borderline Republicans: The internal GOP battle over
immigration gets ugly,” The Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2004,
43. Ibid. www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005227.
44. Ibid. 63. A. Bernhardt et al., eds., The Gloves-Off Economy: Workplace
45. Ibid. Standards at the Bottom of America’s Labor Market (Labor and
46. National Employment Law Project, “Employment Rights Press, 2008).
of Workers with Criminal Records” (New York: National
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47. Reentry Policy Council, “Review of the Re-Entry Process” 65. Name has been changed
(New York: Council of State Governments, January 2005), 66. Sharon Parrott, “Recession Could Cause Large Increases
reentrypolicy.org/Report/PartII/ChapterIID/PolicyStatement21/ in Poverty and Push Millions into Deep Poverty: Stimulus
ResearchHighlight21-1. Package Should Include Policies to Ameliorate Harshest
48. Devah Pager, Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Effects of Downturn” (Washington, D.C.: Center on Budget and
Era of Mass Incarceration (Chicago: The University of Chicago Policy Priorities, November 24, 2008), www.cbpp.org/11-24-
Press, 2007). 08pov.htm.
49. Ibid. 67. “Policy Basics: An Introduction to TANF,” Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities, March 19, 2009, www.cbpp.org/cms/index.
50. Eric Eckholm, “Racial Disparities Found to Persist as Drug cfm?fa=view&id=936.
Arrest Rise,” New York Times, May 6, 2008,www.nytimes.
com/2008/05/06/us/05cnd-disparities.html?_r=1. 68. Sharon Parrott and Arloc Sherman, “TANF at 10: Program
Results are More Mixed than Often Understood” (Washington
D.C.: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, August 17, 2006), Kochlar et al., “Through Boom and Bust: Minorities, Immigrants
www.cbpp.org/8-17-06tanf.htm. and Homeownership,” Pew Hispanic Center, May, 12, 2009,
http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/109.pdf
69. Zachary Levinson and Liz Schott, “TANF Benefits are Low
and Have Not Kept Pace with Inflation (But Most States Have 87. Bob Tedeschi, “College Tuition Not on the House,” New
Increased Benefits Above a Freeze Level in Recent Years)” York Times, Aril 3, 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/
(Washington, D.C.: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, realestate/05mort.html?_r=1
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88. M
indy Fullilove, Root Shock: How Tearing Up City
70. Jason Deparle, “Welfare Aid Isn’t Growing as Economy Drops Neighborhoods Hurts America, and What We Can Do about It
Off,” New York Times, February 1, 2009, A1. (New York: Random House, Inc., 2005).
71. Sharon Parrott, “Recession Could Cause Large Increases in 89. Preferred their last names not be used.
Poverty and Push Millions into Deep Poverty: Stimulus Package
Should Include Policies to Ameliorate Harshest Effects of 90. U
.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Homes
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72. From Poverty to Punishment: How Welfare Reform Punishes 91. C

hristy Rogers, “Subprime Loans, Foreclosure, and the Credit
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73. Ibid.
92. “ Investment Banks Provided Subprime Lenders with Critical
74. Ibid. Funding,” Free Republic Blog, posted on October 3, 2008,
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75. Name has been changed
93. T
hese are adjustable and often start off with a lower “teaser”
76. A. Bernhardt et al., eds., The Gloves-Off Economy: Workplace rate−and include high fees, balloon payments, prepayment
Standards at the Bottom of America’s Labor Market (Labor and penalties and broker solicitation.
Press, 2008). 94. V. Bajaj, “East Coast Money Lent Out West,” The New
York Times, May 8, 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/
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doc/20090330/bernhardt_owens. 96. A
Yield Spread Premium is the money paid to a mortgage
80. “Massive Foreclosures Continue to Fuel Recession (Central broker based on an interest rate above the lowest rate the
Cause of Credit Market and Economic Woes Gains borrower qualifies for.
Momentum),” National Community Reinvestment Coalition, 97.Christy Rogers, “Subprime Loans, Foreclosure, and the Credit
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hristy Rogers, “Subprime Loans, Foreclosure, and the Credit We Come and How Far Have We to Go?” The Kirwan
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&scp=2&pagewanted=print. Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, 2008.
85. C
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86. A
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United For a Fair Economy January 15, 2008). See also R.
102. L
. Aguilar, “MI Foreclosure Rate is Nation’s Sixth Highest,” Development Advocacy Project, March 2008, nedap.org/
The Detroit News, April 16, 2009, www.detnews.com/ resources/documents/MultistateHMDAReport-Final21.pdf.
article/20090416/BIZ01/904160369/1010.
120. “America’s Rental Housing: The Key to a Balanced National
103. N
. Hurst, “Foreclosures hit suburbs as layoffs surge, Policy,” Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard
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detnews.com/article/20090413/BIZ/904130337/Foreclosu rh08_americas_rental_housing/rh08_americas_rental_
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104. D. Bocian, K. Ernst, and Wei Li, “Unfair Lending: The 121. “Renters in Foreclosure: Defining the Problem, Identifying
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Mortgages,” Center for Responsible Lending, May 31, December 2008, www2398.ssldomain.com/nlihc/template/
2006, responsiblelending.org/issues/mortgage/research/ page.cfm?id=21.
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Innocent Victims of the Nation’s Foreclosure Crisis,”
105. “ The Impending Rate Shock (A Study of Home Mortgages Albany Government Law Review, 2008, www.
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106. Ibid. 124. Ibid.
107.Ibid. 125. “Without Just Cause: A 50-State Review of the (Lack of)
Rights of Tenants in Foreclosure,” National Law Center on
108. C
hristy Rogers, “Subprime Loans, Foreclosure, and the Homelessness and Poverty, 2009, www.nlchp.org/content/
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Kirwan Institute, December, 2008.
126. “Out Of Reach,” National Low Income Housing Coalition,
109. Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The 2009, www.nlihc.org/oor/oor2009/.
Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1985). 127. “America’s Rental Housing: The Key to a Balanced National
Policy,” Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard
110. Ibid. University, 2008, www.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/rental/
rh08_americas_rental_housing/rh08_americas_rental_
111. Kimble, John. “Insuring Inequality: The Role of the Federal housing.pdf.
Housing Administration in the Urban Ghettoization of African
Americans.” Law & Social Inquiry, Vol. 32, No. 2. (May 2007), 128. A. Clark, D. Diop- Duval, and Kalima Rose, “A Long Way
pp. 399-434. Home: A State of Housing Recovery in Louisiana,” Policy
Link, 2008, www.policylink.org/threeyearslater/index.html.
112. Calvin P Bradford, “Export Report Pursuant to Rule 26(a)
(2)(B)” (Williamsburg VA: United States District Court for the 129. “Homelessness looms as potential outcome of recession,”
Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division). National Alliance to End Homelessness, January 13, 2009,
www.endlongtermhomelessness.org/knowledge_center/
113. Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action was White (New homelessness_looms_as_potential.aspx.
York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005).
130. “Illegal Dwelling Units: A Potential Source of Affordable
114. Ibid. Housing in New York City,” Chhaya Community
115. The regulatory agencies responsible for the enforcement of Development Corporation, August 14, 2008, www.
CRA are the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance chhayacdc.org/ourissues.html.
Corporation (FDIC), The Office of the Comptroller of the 131. G. Thomas Kingsley and Margery Austin Turner, “Federal
Currency (OCC) and the office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). Programs for Addressing Low-Income Housing Needs,”
116. Gregory D. Squires, “Do subprime loans create subprime Urban Institute, December 2008, www.urban.org/
cities? Surging inequality and the rise in predatory lending,” UploadedPDF/411798_low-income_housing.pdf.
Economic Policy Institute Briefing Paper #197, February 28, 132. “Homelessness looms as potential outcome of recession,”
2008, www.epi.org/publications/entry/bp197/. National Alliance to End Homelessness, January 13, 2009,
117. “Citigroup: Reinventing Redlining-An Analysis of Lending www.endlongtermhomelessness.org/knowledge_center/
and Branch Disparities for Citigroup’s Prime and Subprime homelessness_looms_as_potential.aspx.
Lending Affiliates,” (Chicago: National Training and 133. Raul Ojeda-Hinojosa, “Economic Stimulus through
Information Center, June 2002). Legalization” William C. Velasquez Institute, 2009, www.
118. Gregory D. Squires, “Predatory Lending: Redlining in wcvi.org/intermestic_initiatives/immigwhitepaper012309.
Reverse,” National Housing Institute, 2005, /www.nhi.org/ htm.
online/issues/139/redlining.html
119. C
. Bromley et al., “Paying More for the American Dream:
The Subprime Shakeout and its Impact on Lower-Income
and Minority Communities,” Neighborhood Economic

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1 • Applied Research Center • Race and Recession 2009

Chapter 1. Introduction: Some are More Unequal...7

Chapter 2. Race and Work in the Crisis Economy...11

Chapter 3. Housing Discrimination, Race and Wealth...32

Chapter 4. Conclusion: Moving Forward...47

Endnotes...52 900 Alice Street, Suite 400 32 Broadway, Suite 1801

Martin Jaqac Louise Alston

Unemployment by Race, 1973-2009

15.6 Periods of Recession in the US

• Farrah Hassan1, an Iraqi American mother of four in her early

Racial Wealth Divide, 1992-2007

• Sandra Hines, a middle-aged Black woman, lost her family home

1. Overarching Policy Framework

2. Immediate Actions: Alleviate State of Emergency

3. Policies Needed within the Next Year

Fig. 1. Productivity and Median Weekly Earnings in U.S.,

Indeed, growing stratification cannot be fully understood without accounting

Fig. 2. Income Inequality and Race in U.S., 2007

High Inequality Medium Inequality Low Inequality

Source: ARC's calculations of U.S. Census data.

In a Department of Human Services office in Providence, Rhode Island, Belinda Reyes11, a

This chapter explores racial inequity in jobs and employment in the

Unemployment and Underemployment

Rates of employment are a central measure of economic wellbeing, and an

Fig. 3. Unemployment by Race, 1973-2009

15.6 Periods of Recession in the US

Unemployment for Young Workers of Color

Fig. 4. Unemployment for Young Workers by Race, 1977-2009.

Periods of Recession in the US

Racial Job Segregation

Fig. 5. Occupations and Race, April 2009

Total Unemployment= 4.0%

16% 26% 25%

11% 14% 17% Total Unemployment=13.6% white

Production, transportation, and material moving occupations

10% 6% 17% Total Unemployment= 15.3% Latino

Job Segregation and Low-Wage Work

In addition to lost work opportunities and wages in construction,

Fig. 6. Median Weekly Earnings by Occupation and Race, April 2009

38% 29% 20%

24% 25% 22%

16% 26% 25%

People of color are concentrated in jobs with below-average median weekly

Fig. 7. Median Weekly Earnings by Race and Gender, 2009

Latino Total $545

Latino Men $577

Black Women $559

Black Total $577

Black Men $595

White Women $666

Total White $758

White Men $855

You are less likely

Fig. 8. Mean Earnings of Workers by Race and Educational Attainment, 2007

Source: Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009.

Inequitable Benefits: Discriminatory

Low-wage jobs offer few benefits to employees. Nationally, 18% of people of

Structural and Institutional Roots of Racial Inequities in Work

Discriminatory Hiring and Promotion

Alina recalled a recent experience: “I went to an interview at a movie theater, and a

• Farrah Hassan1, an Iraqi American mother of four in her early

• Sandra Hines, a middle-aged Black woman, lost her family home

B. Community Reinvestment Act Modernization

C. Moratorium on Workplace Raids and Immediate Termination of 287(g)

he Equal Employment Opportunity Commission should more vigorously