How Government Job Cuts Affect The Middle Class

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Back in the day, the road to security was through a good government job. But as the government scales back on employment, especially in state and local sectors, it seems that road is not so sure anymore. Capital Public Radio reports that African Americans, which are 30 percent more likely than nonblacks to work in the public sector, will disproportionately feel the negative effects of these cutbacks.

“Most government jobs have good pay and benefits and are probably what we would consider a good foundation for middle-class incomes,”  Roderick Harrison, a Howard University research scientist said to Capital Public Radio.  “So any loss of government jobs is going to disproportionately hit the middle class…The black population, which is more dependent on government for middle-class job opportunities, is going to be more heavily hit.”

Government jobs have been steadily decreasing since the recession in December 2007 as officials have been forced to make tough decisions to cut budgets and deal with the increasingly high cost of unemployment benefits. Over the last three years, government has gotten rid of 2.6 percent of its jobs, which is according to nonprofit Roosevelt Institute, the largest reduction in its history. Last year 265,000 government employees were cut. In fact, government job loss has been one of the worst hindrances to the economic recovery. Even the 130,000 jobs added in the private sector last April was undercut by the 15,000 jobs cut in government.

“The three pillars of middle-class African-American life were the public sector, good manufacturing jobs, and black entrepreneurs that served the black community during segregation,” Berkeley Center economist Steven Pitts said to Capital Public Radio. “With the end of segregation, you put pressure on the black entrepreneurs, and then there was the decline in manufacturing. Now we see the erosion of the third pillar — the public sector.”

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