Joblessness and Lack of Opportunity for Black Urban Youth (1983)

<v Sandra King>or easily fixed or even much affected by the upturn in the economy. <v Fred Murphy>Majority of us are not working, you know, we just out here statistic. <v Sandra King>The statistics are grim, despite the overall drop in unemployment, the <v Sandra King>rate for young people remains high, close to 20 percent. <v Sandra King>And for young black men in a place like Newark, the numbers are staggering. <v Sandra King>At least one of every two with no job and few prospects. <v Don Young>Right around the projects out of work. <v Don Young>I would say about 85 percent, any other percentage would be underemployed. <v Fred Murphy>When I go to interview, I dress very neatly. <v Fred Murphy>I carry myself in a respectful manner. <v Fred Murphy>And I do. I think I do everything that's needed to get a job. <v Fred Murphy>I don't know why I don't get it. <v Sandra King>Fred Murphy has been asking why since his high school graduation more than three years <v Sandra King>ago, there he'd been a success. <v Sandra King>Football, class president, good grades, hopes of getting out of the poverty

<v Sandra King>pocket called Hayes Homes. <v Sandra King>But the only work he's found is back here in the projects, and that is only part time. <v Fred Murphy>That they take out one hundred thirty eight dollars every two weeks. <v Fred Murphy>Give my mother some money. <v Fred Murphy>She's my backbone, and hope I have enough money to buy me a pair pants and <v Fred Murphy>wait till the next payday. <v Fred Murphy>That's it. <v Julian Bond>The Unemployment among this group is frighteningly high. <v Julian Bond>There are people who simply don't want to hire a black person, particularly a black <v Julian Bond>youth. It happens because this group of people tend to be semi <v Julian Bond>or unskilled. They're not able to perform some of the tasks that industry is demanding <v Julian Bond>them to perform. And some of them come to the market with very, very poor educational <v Julian Bond>skills. <v Dr. Donald Scarry>Most of the jobs that become available in our urban areas are not jobs <v Dr. Donald Scarry>with long run future growth linkages. <v Dr. Donald Scarry>Some of them tend to be dead end jobs so that the <v Dr. Donald Scarry>urban youth have to be even more flexible. <v Alan Reynolds>It isn't the case that 40 percent of the 60 or whatever the number

<v Alan Reynolds>is, are unemployed for their entire teenage period. <v Alan Reynolds>They have job experiences. They don't have a stable job experiences, and in some cases <v Alan Reynolds>they don't want them. In many cases, it's it's a fairly voluntary lifestyle. <v Sandra King>But Anthony Brown insists there's nothing voluntary about his lifestyle. <v Sandra King>He, too, lives in the Hayes Homes project, and he, too, still has no full <v Sandra King>time job. More than four years after his graduation. <v Anthony Brown>That makes me think that I'm a bad individual. <v Anthony Brown>I did something bad, but I know I haven't. <v Anthony Brown>I look at myself in the mirror and I say, hey, it's time to get something together. <v Anthony Brown>I want a little money in my pocket for I can spend on certain things, buy me some nice <v Anthony Brown>clothes. Go out when I want to. <v Anthony Brown>Give things to people who give to me. <v Sandra King>Anthony's mother does work, but only five hours a day at less than five <v Sandra King>dollars an hour. It's all that she can find to support her family <v Sandra King>while she worries about her son.

<v Dolores Brown>I don't know whether he's just given up or what, because at one point he <v Dolores Brown>really was trying. He'd be up in the morning. <v Dolores Brown>Sometimes he'd pack a little sandwich and put in his pocket and go and <v Dolores Brown>he's not lazy. That's what I, you know, he's not lazy. <v Dolores Brown>If he had a job, he would work at it. <v Anthony Brown>Eventually, something good is gonna come along, and when it does I'll be happy to stay <v Anthony Brown>with it for the rest of my life. <v Sandra King>You're still looking? <v Anthony Brown>Oh, yes. <v Sandra King>Anthony did pass through a job training course. <v Sandra King>They taught him painting, what they didn't supply was job placement and he passed <v Sandra King>the firemen's exam. But in Newark, they are not hiring firefighters. <v Sandra King>They're laying them off. <v Sen. Frank Lautenberg>You find young people, 40, 50 percent of unemployed, can't get <v Sen. Frank Lautenberg>jobs, want to work. <v Sen. Frank Lautenberg>You can't tell that if you live in some parts of New Jersey that there are any problems. <v Sandra King>But in parts like Camden, youth unemployment is a brutal fact of life. <v Sandra King>It comes with the territory, the slums, the boarded up buildings are the ones <v Sandra King>active plants long since abandoned.

<v Melvin Primus>They're not finding those entry level positions. <v Melvin Primus>Those labor positions and basically the blue collar positions that once <v Melvin Primus>was Camden's fame. <v Melvin Primus>This has always been a blue collar town with a number of production jobs. <v Melvin Primus>They just don't exist anymore. <v Sandra King>And not just in Camden. <v Sandra King>The state's worst unemployment is in Cumberland County. <v Sandra King>Jobs there are hard to find. <v Sandra King>But business is always booming on the Vineland unemployment line. <v Sandra King>The jobless problem there is not down. <v Sandra King>It comes in all colors. <v Sandra King>And just like in Newark, it is highest among kids.