Sunday, April 29, 2012

Blacks in South L.A. Have A Bleaker Jobs Picture Than In 1992 [Except Millionaire Maxine Waters!]


LATimes ^ | April 27, 2012 | Ricardo Lopez



Blacks in South L.A. Have A Bleaker Jobs Picture Than In 1992 Median income in South Los Angeles is lower now than during the 1992 riots, and the unemployment rate has reached even more dire levels.
By Ricardo Lopez April 28, 2012 Two decades after the L.A. riots brought pledges of help to rebuild South Los Angeles, the area is worse off in many ways than it was in 1992.
Median income, when adjusted for inflation, is lower. Many middle-class blacks have fled in search of safer neighborhoods and better schools.
And the unemployment rate, which was bad at the time of the riots, has reached even more dire levels. In two areas of South Los Angeles — Florence Graham and Westmont — unemployment is almost 24%. Back in 1992, it was 21% in Florence Graham and 17% in Westmont.
Last summer, thousands of South Los Angeles residents showed up to a job fair that brought out almost 200 employers at Crenshaw Christian Center on Vermont Avenue. The event, organized by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), was seen by some as grandstanding.
"People were really skeptical," said Kokayi Kwa Jitahidi, a community organizer with the nonprofit Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. "People thought, 'Another job fair?'"
There have been training and other job programs — both privately and government-funded — in the roughly 51-square-mile area in the last two decades. A post-riots report said the area needed an investment of about $6 billion and the creation of 75,000 to 94,000 jobs.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...

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