June 01, 2017
By Freddie Allen
NNPA Newswire
Even though Black women lost ground in the labor market last month, the unemployment rate for Black workers dipped below 8 percent for the first time since January 2017, according to the latest jobs report from the Labor Department.
Not only did the unemployment (UE) rate for Black workers improve, the labor force participation rate (LFPR), which is the share of people in the labor market who have jobs or who are looking for work, also moved in a positive direction. The labor force participation rate for Black workers increased from 62.3 percent in March to 62.5 percent in April. The employment-population ratio (E-POP), or the share of the population with jobs, climbed a few notches from 57.3 percent to 57.6 percent in April.
The jobless rate for White workers decreased from 3.9 percent in March to 3.8 percent in April, and so did the labor force participation rate. The E-POP for White workers was flat.
April was a good month for Black men over 20 years-old; the three main indicators (UE, LFPR and E-POP) all moved in positive directions. The unemployment rate for that group improved from 8.2 percent in March to 7.3 percent last month.
Meanwhile, White, working men over 20 years-old, who looked for jobs in April, found them, for the most part. The labor force participation rate for White men was flat at 71.9 percent, but the employment-population ratio for that group increased from 69.2 percent in March to 69.4 percent in April. The unemployment rate for White men improved from 3.6 percent in March to 3.4 percent in April.
White working women over 20 years-old, took losses in two out of the three key market indicators last month and their unemployment rate was flat (3.5 percent), likely due to White women exiting the labor market.
April’s jobs report was a tough one for Black women over 20 years-old. For the third month in a row, the labor force rate for Black working women was flat at (62.7 percent). The E-POP took a few steps back from the 58.6 percent mark set in March to 58.4 percent in April. The unemployment rate for Black women increased from 6.6 percent to 6.9 percent in April.
Economists say that the measures of labor market indicators for minority subgroups are more prone to wild swings, because the survey sample sizes are smaller for minority workers compared to the sample size for White workers. Economists also say that the public shouldn’t make much out of a single job report and should instead watch for trends.
One of those trends, was an increase in “annual work hours for all workers, especially low-wage African American workers and women,” from 1979 to 2015, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a think tank focused on the needs of low- and middle-income workers.
In a recent post on EPI’s website, Valerie Rawlston Wilson, the director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy (PREE) for the think tank, noted that working moms were “significant contributors to this trend.” More than half of all Black female workers are moms compared to roughly 44 percent of White female workers.
“African American working moms are uniquely central to the economic well-being of their families,” wrote Wilson. “To begin with, more than two-thirds of all African American working mothers are single moms, making them the primary, if not sole, economic providers for their families. By comparison, 29.6 percent of white working mothers and 47.9 percent of Hispanic working mothers are single.”
Black married women with children also worked more hours per year and earned less money per hour than White married women with children, according to EPI.
“What’s behind this greater attachment to the labor force? For African American women, it may have to do with higher rates of Black unemployment and racial pay and wealth disparities motivating the greater intensity of work relative to other groups,” wrote Wilson. “Economic policy has unquestionably failed single working mothers, who tend to work fewer hours in lower-wage jobs and often lack necessary family work supports like paid leave, health care and retirement benefits, affordable high quality child care and more predictable work scheduling.”
In a statement about April’s jobs report, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) said that even though President Trump inherited a growing economy from President Obama, his plans to significantly cut programs that support long-term economic prosperity would only jeopardize those gains.
Scott also said that, “Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a plan that will cause 24 million Americans to lose their health insurance will only exacerbate the economic harm that will be inflicted on working families.”
Scott said that he hoped that the current president and Congressional Republicans would instead work with Democrats on solutions to continue to build on the historic economic growth that the nation experienced under President Obama.
The Labor Department will release its next jobs report on June 2.
May 25, 2017
City News Service
The median price of a home in Los Angeles County rose by 5.8 percent in April, compared with the same month a year earlier, while the number of homes sold tumbled by 9.8 percent, a real estate information service announced Tuesday.
According to CoreLogic, the median price of a Los Angeles County home was $550,000 last month, up from $520,000 in April 2016. A total of 6,367 homes were sold in the county, down from 7,062 during the same month the previous year.
In Orange County, the median price was $675,000 last month, up 4.7 percent from $645,000 in April 2016. The number of homes sold rose by 0.7 percent, from 3,287 in April 2016 to 3,309 last month.
A total of 20,244 new and resale houses and condos changed hands in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties last month, according to CoreLogic. That was down 8.4 percent from 22,094 in March and down 4.8 percent from 21,274 in April 2016.
The median price of a Southern California home was $485,000 in April, up 1 percent from $480,000 in March and up 6.2 percent from $456,500 in April 2016.
“At first glance, Southern California’s April 2017 home sales seem a bit underwhelming, especially after a strong start to the homebuying season this March when sales hit a decade-high for that month,” said Andrew LePage, research analyst with CoreLogic. “However, compared with this April, March 2017 had three more business days and April 2016 had one more business day on which deals could be recorded. When measured by the average number of transactions recorded daily, last month's sales were roughly the same as in March 2017 and April 2016.”
May 25, 2017
City News Service
The city of Los Angeles’ Office of Wage Standards has collected more than $250,000 in restitution since last July for workers who were paid below the city’s minimum wage, the head of the Bureau of Contract Administration said Tuesday.
The City Council created the Office of Wage Standards within the Bureau of Contract Administration of the Department of Public Works in 2015 to help enforce the city's plan to increase the minimum wage to $15 by 2020.
The first increase kicked in on July 1 of last year for employers with 26 or more workers, bringing the hourly rate from $10, which is the state's minimum wage, to $10.50.
John Reamer, director of the Bureau of Contract Administration, told the City Council about the work of the Office of Wage Standards while speaking about the Department of Public Works' annual report.
The report was for fiscal year 2015-16, so it did not cover the new minimum wage law and the Office of Wage Standards, but Reamer included the information on this year's minimum wage enforcement effort during his verbal presentation.
According to the UCLA Labor Center, L.A. workers lose $26.6 million each week from wage theft through labor violations committed by their employers. Wage theft could include workers not getting paid overtime, getting misclassified as independent contractors and being paid lower than the minimum wage.
For fiscal year 2015-16, the Office of Wage Standards had five employees, but the staff increased this fiscal year and is currently at 19.
A UC Berkeley study in 2015 found that L.A. would need 25 investigators to reach an average of one investigator per 20,000 low-wage workers similar to the standard in San Francisco, which has the state’s oldest minimum wage law.
Councilman Paul Koretz asked Reamer if he felt the current staffing levels were sufficient.
“The optimum number, it's hard to say,” Reamer responded.
Reamer added that small businesses that have 26 employees or fewer will be subject to the minimum wage increase starting in July. He said the change will likely lead to a higher workload for the office and he will monitor closely to see if additional resources are needed.
Kimberly Fitzpatrick, division manager for the Office of Wage Standards, told City News Service there is money in the budget for seven additional positions for the upcoming fiscal year in the unallocated balance.
“If the workload materializes, they have earmarked money... The way it would work is, if the workload requires it, we would then go back to the council and request those positions,” she said.
May 11, 2017
City News Service
Hoping to boost the city's stock of affordable housing, the City Council agreed Wednesday to legalize some previously un-permitted apartments in multi-family buildings.
Under the ordinance, which was approved on a 12-0 vote, landlords can rent out previously unapproved units, provided they offer an equal amount of affordable housing units at the same location.
The ordinance stemmed from a motion introduced by former Councilman Felipe Fuentes in 2014 directing the Department of City Planning to propose options for legalizing unapproved dwelling units.
Numerous studies have found that due to a lack of available units at all economic levels, rental prices have risen in recent years, making the city one of the least affordable in the country to live in. The approved ordinance is the latest in a series of moves the City Council has taken to address the issue.
"As we all know we have a housing crisis in the city of Los Angeles and it hits our low-income residents even harder. What this will do is allow us to secure affordable units across the city while still meeting all our fire, life and safety codes and bring so many of our existing stock out of the shadows and allow people to live in them with their families," said Councilman Jose Huizar, who chairs the Planning and Land Use Management Committee and has been a supporter of the ordinance. "This ordinance will directly benefit and protect those residents and their families while increasing our available affordable housing stock for others."
According to Huizar's office, as an unintended result of the city's inspection of multi-family buildings, between 400 and 500 housing units are removed from the market each year because they were not permitted and were being rented out illegally.
"I'm so excited for this day because I have been pushing for this since I first got on the council," Councilman Paul Koretz said. "The city has had what I view as a bad practice for years of finding these units, kicking out the tenants and vacating them and wiping out affordable housing that would have cost us hundreds of millions of dollars to build if we were trying to create it."
For a unit to become eligible to be permitted, it must be free from other code violations and meet other standards, including having existed since before Dec. 10, 2015.