New Report on the State of Communities of Color

The Center for American Progress just released a report on Friday that examines the impact of the Great Recession on communities of color in the United States.

Many communities of color, particularly African Americans and Latinos, experienced similar hardships during this recession even though their experience  during the preceding business cycle varied substantially.  African Americans saw  few economic gains during the last business cycle, with stagnant or declining  homeownership and wages, high unemployment rates, and low employment rates  even as the economy grew. Latinos, in comparison, saw comparatively strong jobs  gains that were reflected in other gains, particularly in homeownership, during the  last business cycle. Those gains, though, were insufficient to provide a buffer for  Latinos once the recession hit, leading Latinos to lose most of the ground gained  during the previous business cycle.

The data show that Asian Americans’ employment and earnings are generally  on par with those of whites, but the data are dominated by Chinese and Indian Americans. Other Asian nationalities, among them Vietnamese Americans and Cambodian Americans, are struggling to recover from the Great Recession, but limited data disguise the diversity within the Asian-American community. Still,  even the existing data for Asian Americans show substantial economic struggles in the worst recession, alongside economic hardships for white families.

CAP is also very specific about what policies that seek to address this reality should do:

The data suggest that communities of color face continued structural obstacles to gain the same economic opportunities as white families, even during good economic times. This implies three policy lessons. First, policymakers need to pay continued attention to the weak labor market to ensure there is a rising tide that can lift all boats. Second, policies intended to create more jobs need to include provisions that particularly target communities of color. Third, policymakers need to put in place policies that go beyond the immediate need for job creation for everybody to help erase differences in economic security and opportunity by race and ethnicity. (emphasis added)

This is often a tough sell to Americans.  But the reality is that though everyone is suffering, everyone is not suffering the same way, and so the remedies have to be targeted to each group’s particular need.

We’ll see how that goes.  What do y’all think?