Today, black unemployment is 15.5 percent - nearly seven points higher than the national average. For blacks ages 16-24, that figure jumps to 23.3 percent.
Regions of our country where blacks should have been able to find a job are today dominated by Hispanics. For example, the labor force in Las Vegas is 22 percent Hispanic and 10 percent black. In Los Angeles, it is 43 percent Hispanic and only 6 percent black. In Texas this figure is 35 percent Hispanic and 10 percent black. Blacks are being forced to compete head-on with a rising tide of people flooding across the borders.
The first order of business should be to manage our immigration system, which vastly increases labor supply versus demand. Blacks are most likely to be displaced by the tsunami of lower-skilled illegal workers. In 1992, the gap between white and black unemployment was 4.5 percentage points. Today it stands at 7.9 points. This unemployment gap also creates a wealth gap, with blacks continuously having to play catch-up.
There are those who believe that high rates of unemployment in the black community are the fault of blacks - and that immigrants are only taking the jobs that blacks don't want. The overwhelming data and common sense suggest that this is not true. After all, those same jobs (janitorial, construction, hotel, restaurant, etc.) were also around in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, when America was the world's strongest power. Black Americans are not refusing to work. They need a level playing field.
