Economics

OP-ED: Shrinking middle class squeezes African Americans, Latinos

Published

11 years ago

June 10, 2015

They teach our children, drive our buses, clean our streets and deliver our mail. They staff the government and make it run. Their public-sector jobs are at the heart of the middle class, particularly for African-Americans and Latinos. And they are in steep decline.

One of five African-American adults works in government employment. This is a higher percentage than either white Americans or Latinos. It isn’t surprising. Freed of segregation, African-Americans came into our cities just as manufacturing jobs — the traditional pathway to the middle class — were headed abroad. Government employment offered secure jobs, decent pay and benefits, a chance to buy a home and lift your family.

Women also flocked to public service jobs, which offered greater professional and managerial opportunities.

But in 2008 when the economy collapsed, state budgets were savaged. Tax revenues plummeted; spending needs soared. Deep cutbacks in regular programs followed. No one will be surprised to learn that African Americans lost jobs at a higher rate than whites, often because of seniority.

Now, in the sixth year of the recovery, the economy has inched back, unemployment is down. But employment in the public sector hasn’t bounced back. The new jobs being created pay less and offer less security than the jobs that were lost.

And this has devastating effects on the African-American middle class, the very people who have worked hard, played by the rules, and sought to get ahead.

The Economic Policy Institute estimates that since 2007, there are 1.8 million missing jobs in the public sector. Moreover, across the country, conservative Republican governors have assaulted unions and sought to curb collective bargaining, erase teacher tenure, and dramatically cut pensions and other benefits.

The loss of jobs and cutback on wages exacerbated the housing collapse. We’ve learned that banks and other predators targeted black neighborhoods like Prince Georges County in Maryland.

They marketed shoddy mortgages, leaving those with good credit paying higher rates than they could have and those with no credit betting it all on the assumption that housing prices would never fall.

Many report on the decline of the middle class, which has fallen backward over the last decade in both median income and wealth. More than 8 of 10 Americans, according to a Pew Poll, now report that it is harder to maintain their standard of living than it was 10 years ago.

And African-Americans and Latinos got hit the hardest. The race gap has widened, not narrowed, in this century. The New York Times reports that 50 percent of African-Americans now are low-income households, along with 43 percent of Latinos — a category that has been growing since 2000.

In Illinois, the nonprofit Corporation for Enterprise Development reports that more than one in three households suffers a “persistent state of financial insecurity.” Again, African-Americans, Latinos and single women with children fare worse.

Numbers like this numb. We know the reality. But we seem in denial. When Baltimore blows up, the spotlight is put on the police and their practices, as it should be.

But police forces across the country are ordered to keep order in communities racked with unemployment, homelessness, drugs, guns, collapsing schools, impoverished families and crushed hopes. The best-trained, more empathetic police officers in the country would have a hard time fulfilling that mission.

This country cannot stay in denial. We have to have a bold plan to rebuild high poverty neighborhoods from Chicago’s South Side to Appalachia’s valleys. Across the country we have work to do — from rebuilding 100-year-old water systems to creating the rapid transit that will connect people to jobs to moving to clean energy — and we have an entire generation of young people desperate for work.

We have corporations stashing trillions abroad to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Billionaire hedge fund operators pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries. We need rebuild America and put people to work. The cost of losing another generation to despair will be far greater than the cost of investing in them on the front side of life.

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Activism

At the event, 16 entities signed the EIP pledge, vowing to take steps to increase public contracting opportunities in their spheres for small and historically underutilized businesses. The pledge signees included Hub International, the Port of San Francisco, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, California High-Speed Rail Authority, the Port of Oakland, Robert Graham of Webcor Builders, Holder Construction, the Weitz Company, Sky Blue Builders, Hornblower, Swinerton, Luster National, Talson Solutions, Center for Community Wealth Building, and the Construction Contractors Alliance.

Published

5 days ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Toks Omishakin, secretary of the California State Transportation Agency, was one of the speakers at the event. Photo by Shellee Fisher Photography and Design.

By Calvin Naito, Special to The Post

On June 4, a national nonprofit named the Equity in Infrastructure Project (EIP) – which aims to increase public construction contracting opportunities for small and historically underutilized businesses – held a day-long event in downtown San Francisco to rally supporters and build momentum to its cause.

It was attended by more than 100 individuals from public agencies, private firms, and other organizations committed to increasing contracting opportunities with governmental agencies, thereby creating more competition and lowering public costs.

The EIP event was held the Hyatt Regency San Francisco in conjunction with BuildIT, which aims to increase contracting opportunities for LGBT-owned businesses.

At the event, 16 entities signed the EIP pledge, vowing to take steps to increase public contracting opportunities in their spheres for small and historically underutilized businesses.

The pledge signees included Hub International, the Port of San Francisco, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, California High-Speed Rail Authority, the Port of Oakland, Robert Graham of Webcor Builders, Holder Construction, the Weitz Company, Sky Blue Builders, Hornblower, Swinerton, Luster National, Talson Solutions, Center for Community Wealth Building, and the Construction Contractors Alliance.

Following the workshop, BuildIT hosted a VIP evening reception honoring EIP, whose principals – Phil Washington, John Procari, and Rick Jacobs – accepted the award.

The event also set in motion the coalition’s efforts to implement recommendations from EIP’s “Procurement for Prosperity: A Playbook.”

The Playbook is a practical guide for public agency leaders and procurement and contracting practitioners to grow the capacity of small and first-time contractors, strengthen competition, and deliver better value for taxpayers.

Toks Omishakin, Secretary of the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA), a long-time EIP supporter, also told attendees, “This is about commitment. This has been a life’s work. This is a tailwind moment.”

The event’s presenting sponsor was Hub International, one of the largest insurance brokerages in the nation, which was joined by partners Travelers Insurance and the State Compensation Insurance Fund.

After the pledge-signing ceremony, attendees participated in a workshop in which they examined the policies, practices, and programs needed to meet EIP goals, learned from practitioners, and identified next steps toward utilizing the Playbook.

Ingrid Meriwether, formerly of Merriwether & Williams Insurance Services (MWIS) and current president of Hub International’s Aligned Risk Management, MWIS, described the hard-fought lessons she and her MWIS team have learned over the last three decades administering contractor development programs (CDPs) for the City and County of San Francisco, Alameda County, City of Los Angeles, LA Metro, and other municipalities.

The CDPs help small and local construction firms win public infrastructure contracts with these government agencies. The program provides bonding assistance, contract financing, technical support, training, and other services to underrepresented businesses funded by public agencies who seek greater contracting participation with these firms.

Merriwether said programs like these “break down systemic barriers, create greater fairness, and save taxpayers money by enabling more competition. The contractor development programs have, cumulatively, over two decades, helped contractors access over $1 billion in bonding, supporting over $380 million in awarded contracts, and maintaining a loss ratio 250 times lower than the industry average – while saving participating municipalities more than $27 million in contracting costs as a result of enabling more competition.”

Rick Jacobs, EIP co-founder and co-chair urged attendees make plans to meet again in the near future “to continue building on this work, share progress on organizational commitments, and discuss how we can collectively advance the goals of the EIP pledge.”

For more information on the EIP and to access a copy of the Playbook, go online to https://equityininfrastructure.org/

Calvin Naito is communications manager for Equity in Infrastructure Project.