Many employers screen out black, inner-city applicants by
- not using employment ads in city-wide newspapers (when ads are used, they appear in ethnic, neighborhood, or suburban newspapers),
- screening out applicants from urban public schools,
- avoiding welfare programs or state employment services as sources of referral, and
- relying on informal job networks. Employers are especially likely to hire their unskilled workers by getting recommendations from current employees, which means that job hunters who live in areas of high poverty where few people work face an almost insuperable barrier in simply getting an interview.
Wilson writes,
Inner-city black job seekers with limited work experience and little familiarity with the white, middle-class world are also likely to have difficulty in the typical job interview. A spotty work record will have to be justified; misunderstanding and suspicion may undermine rapport and hamper communication. However qualified they are for the job, inner-city black applicants are more likely to fail subjective "tests" of productivity during the interview.10
The dialect of the black ghetto, "Black English Vernacular," can also lead to problems. Not only is the ability to speak, write, and communicate effectively in standard English essential for employment in most white-collar jobs (meaning that most ghetto residents will be considered only for the blue-collar jobs) but even blue-collar employers also make frequent use of language as a screening device. Prospective employees may fail the "telephone test" because they do not speak Standard English well, never even making it to the initial interview.
While it may be easy to sympathize with employers looking for qualified applicants, from the point of view of the man looking for a job, this form of discrimination is just as virulent as if it were due purely to prejudice against African Americans.
Segregation
Continuing, imposed, severe segregation of African Americans from the rest of society is the single most important cause of urban black poverty.
11 The ghetto itself is the problem.
The effect of segregation on black well-being is structural, not individual. Residential segregation lies beyond the ability of any individual to change; it constrains black life chances irrespective of personal traits, individual motivations, or private achievements.
12
Footnotes
10 Ibid p. 33
, suggests that merely moving poor families out of the ghetto is enough to bring those families out of poverty within a generation.
pp. 2-3. This book is an excellent history of modern segregation and its impact on poverty.
