UWM STUDY ATTACKS BARRETT'S "CLUELESSNESS" ON JOBS CRISIS

“Civic leadership in Milwaukee, we contend, continues to lack the vision, policies, and institutions to comprehensively attack and meaningfully alleviate the crisis of race and jobs in the city and region” – Marc V. Levine

By Michael Horne

Professor Marc V. Levine of UWM has issued a scathing criticism of the employment situation for black males in Milwaukee, saying Mayor Barrett’s comments on the crisis show “a troubling sign of cluelessness about the true nature of the jobs crisis in Milwaukee.”

The crisis “goes beyond the ameliorative capacity of “branding strategies” or the new regional image sought by the mayor and the M-7 leadership,” he writes in “Crisis of Black Male Joblessness in Milwaukee: Trends, Explanations and Policy Options” [University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center for Economic Development, March 2007.]

Levine has harsh words for Barrett’s plan to take over job training from the Private Industry Council of Milwaukee County, saying “Barrett’s workforce development plan appears no different than the “training-is-the-answer” initiatives that have preceded it. All have promised to be “employer-driven,” streamlined, and coordinated; thus, these intentions hardly mark the Barrett plan as a new departure. Yet, the earlier training initiatives have all fallen short in alleviating Milwaukee’s employment crisis.”

The problem with the mayor’s vision, as well as with all job training programs he has studied over 40 years, Levine says, is that it is fundamentally flawed.

“Workforce development is predicated on the fallacious assumptions that enough jobs exist for properly trained workers, or that with adequate training enough private-sector jobs will materialize for all workers. In fact, in 2005, by conservative estimate, there were 88,294 more jobless than available jobs in metro Milwaukee; there were six jobless Milwaukeeans for every available job in 2005; there were an astounding nine jobless for every available full-time job. The primary need in Milwaukee is not improved job training, but rather policies that increase the demand for low- to moderate-skilled labor and attack the critical shortage of available jobs in the region.” [Emphasis original.]

The situation in Milwaukee is particularly troubling because of three factors:

· De-industrialization has removed the jobs that were once available for entry-level and lower-skilled labor;

· Suburbanization of jobs has moved employment from where 91% of the black workforce lives;

· Hypersegregation has made Milwaukee the only city where there are no industrialized suburbs with any appreciable black population.

The litany of disasters goes on, impeccably researched by Levine, as usual. Since 1980 all net job growth has been in the suburbs; 41 per cent of white workers are employed in exurban counties, and only 11 per cent of blacks …

As for the M-7, the regional cooperation agency, well don’t get Levine started:

“So far, the M-7 seems focused on branding and marketing Milwaukee and pursuing what one researcher has dubbed the ‘job training charade,’ rather than the kinds of meaningful regional “equity” polices in transportation, public finance and housing that could make a difference in combating minority joblessness.”

The solution: Levine says government spending on infrastructure with employment goals such as we have for the Marquette Interchange project and the City Hall restoration project would be key.

Specifically “this study recommends that Milwaukee leaders vigorously pursue development of a jobs-producing, competitiveness-enhancing regional light rail transit system. In its political resistance to light rail, Milwaukee is increasingly isolated among U.S. cities; and, the more Milwaukee remains immobilized on this issue, the more the region risks falling further behind our competitors economically, and the more we lose the opportunity for a “big bang” investment that could ameliorate the labor market for low- to moderate-skilled workers.

For the private initiatives, Levine recommends housing construction, particularly near employment centers.

A critical element of a jobs strategy in Milwaukee must involve opening up the suburban labor markets of the region to racial diversity. “Opening up the suburbs” might include several policy options, but the two most important are transportation and housing.

· Regional transportation policies must be realigned to facilitate the access of central city workers to suburban employment centers;

· Affordable housing in the suburbs is essential, so that low- to –moderate-skilled workers, with limited incomes, can live in greater proximity to the location of 90 percent of the region’s entry-level job openings.

I think Levine is absolutely right, and would welcome your dissenting comments, particularly on the subject of transportation. If we can’t run a simple bus up N. Port Washington Road in Mequon where entry-level jobs go begging by the hundreds just miles from the central city, then we have no right to complain that unemployed black males are threatening our precious domestic tranquility milling about on the streets where they live, where there also used to be work.

[Update: March 20^th, 2007 -- In the comments section, you will find a letter from Dr. Levine regarding this post, and his characterization of the coverage if it in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel . He was none too pleased that the daily paper’s headline boasted how black unemployment had seen a rare decline in Milwaukee between 2000 [47.3%] and 2005 [44.1%], which is still a prodigiously high number, yet ignored the substantive portions of his report, especially the parts about transportation, jobs and housing accessibility in the suburbs, malheureusement!—Michael Horne]

Black Crisis report link.