Donald Trump loves to brag about things that he can’t actually take credit for. An economy on the rise, steady job creation numbers, and low unemployment rates are all among them. While these things have technically occurred during his tenure, they are really the result of slow growth and policies and actions taken in the years prior to his term. In other words, thanks, Obama!
However, during his delusions of grandeur (which happen daily) Trump repeatedly tries to convince the American people that he is the greatest thing for the country since the Revolutionary War. In fact, just as recently as last month, Trump made sure to tweet out that black, Hispanic and female unemployment is at its lowest in years because of him, of course.
To quote Trump himself: WRONG! Americans do not have the highest confidence ever. Most of us actually really detest what he’s doing to the country. But, more importantly, the numbers around black unemployment only tell one part of the story. As a recent article in The Guardian points out, “national numbers in a country as big as the US can be misleading.” In certain cities around the country, black unemployment rates are in the double digits.
Take Kansas City, Missouri, for instance. It is a city that has thrived in the decade since the economic recession—with investors and employers contributing to economic growth and employment opportunities. However, that boom has largely passed the city’s black population by. While the unemployment rate in Kansas City is 3.6 percent, in some majority black neighborhoods, the black unemployment rate is as high as five times the national average. In one neighborhood, Blue Hills, which is 91 percent black, the unemployment rate is 17 percent. In another neighborhood, Ivanhoe, which is 86 percent black, the unemployment rate is 26 percent.
There are a number of reasons for this related to structural racism and inequality. One is that blacks are more likely to receive poverty wages than whites (at 14.3 percent compared to 8.3 percent). Education also factors in. We now know that black college graduates earn, on average, 21 percent less than white college graduates. They are also more likely to graduate with student loan debt and more likely to be unemployed.
And, for blacks who have convicted in the criminal justice system, qualifying for steady and decent employment also poses challenges. The Guardian notes that, according to the National Inventory of Collateral Consequences of Convictions (NICCC), people with felony convictions in Missouri can face up to 313 legally sanctioned barriers to employment and job certifications on the basis of their convictions. And for blacks, racism and sexism can increase those barriers in intangible ways. A statistic according to the NAACP emphasizes this fact. “A criminal record can reduce the likelihood of a callback or job offer by nearly 50%.”
When Donald Trump talks about “high confidence” related to unemployment and brags that he’s the great white hope blacks have been waiting for, he’s clearly not in touch with reality. Sure, on the surface, the numbers look good and make it easy for him to brag. But a deeper dive shows a much more complex and grim picture. The economy is doing better and there are more jobs than there were a decade ago. And Barack Obama did move the needle toward progress. But having a black president didn’t fix all the problems for black America. How could it have? While many people were hopeful, we also knew that one person couldn’t fix centuries of persistent structural inequality. And Obama actually cared. Why would anyone believe that a white supremacist president, who we know abhors black people, would actually be the reason for lowered black unemployment? On the whole, blacks continue to make little to no advances in jobs, housing or incarceration. It’s been this way for 50 years. It will likely take many more before things change. What we need are actions and policies that address this inequity—not a narcissist who brags about numbers but who actually hasn’t done squat to make change.