More Government "Do-Gooder" Brilliance, the Law of Unintended Consequences, and Black Unemployment

U.S. unemployment is far too high for the third or fourth year of our nation's "economic recovery," and to most Americans it doesn't feel like much of a recovery at all.

And drilling down into the details, black unemployment is at much higher levels than the general unemployment rate, and that's especially true for younger blacks.

So what is the Obama administration doing about it? Well, it's taking steps, albeit unintentional steps, which nevertheless will keep black unemployment in general, and youth unemployment in particular, too high and perhaps cause it rise further.

And I'm not even referring to the anti-business and anti-economic growth platform or even the anti-domestic energy initiatives of the President. Those are big negatives, of course, but the Obama administrations is doing even more harm than that to the employment prospects for some Americans who are among the most in need of jobs.

What he's doing now is discouraging hiring blacks by attempting to protect them from the discriminatory practices of employers. What he's doing makes no sense. None at all.

Liberals vs. Blacks tells the latest law of unintended consequences government does wrong story simply and succinctly:

"When the Obama administration sued BMW and discount retailer Dollar General earlier this month for the alleged use of unfair criminal background checks to screen workers, the left cheered the move.

Companies argue that security is their only concern when conducting these checks, but critics of the practice say it has a discriminatory effect because blacks are more likely than whites to have a criminal record. Blacks are 13% of the U.S. population but account for 37% of people currently incarcerated, according to the Justice Department.

"The growing use of criminal background checks in hiring decisions has become a flash point in the broader debate over high unemployment rates among African Americans," reported the Washington Post. "Not only did blacks lose more jobs and more wealth than other racial groups during the recession, they also have struggled to gain a foothold in the recovery."

The federal agency that filed the suit is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces federal employment discrimination laws. Last year the agency issued new guidelines that recommended businesses eliminate policies that "exclude people from employment based on a criminal record."

But if the Obama administration's ultimate goal is to increase employment opportunities for minorities, it might consider the empirical research showing that employers who check criminal backgrounds are more likely to hire blacks. Employers who run criminal background checks are also more likely to hire people with spotty work records—a disproportionate number of whom are minorities.

"We find that employers that check criminal backgrounds are in general more likely to hire African Americans," writes Henry Holzer of Georgetown University and two co-authors of a 2006 academic paper titled, "Perceived Criminality, Criminal Background Checks, and the Racial Hiring Practices of Employers."

The authors continue: "[I]n an analysis of employer willingness to hire other stigmatized groups of workers (such as workers with gaps in their employment history), we find nearly identical relationships. Combined, these results suggest that in the absence of background checks, employers use race, gaps in employment history, and other perceived correlates of criminal activity to assess the likelihood of an applicant's previous felony convictions and factor such assessments into the hiring decision."

When you limit the information an employer can use to make a hiring decision, you increase the likelihood that he'll make that decision based on statistics alone. The authors conclude that "the adverse consequence of employer-initiated background checks on the likelihood of hiring African Americans is more than offset by the positive effect of eliminating statistical discrimination."

Opposition to criminal background checks is yet another example of how well-meaning liberals push public policies that make them feel better but ultimately do more to harm than help the intended beneficiaries."

 

Summing Up

 

Chief Justice John Roberts said in the case 'Parents v. Seattle School District' decided in 2007, "The best way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

 

Another good way is to have more information than less when making the hiring decision.

 

We all make mistakes and many times we get arrested and convicted as a result.

 

But that won't necessarily make us bad employees. And employers know that.

 

So why not allow employers making hiring decisions to assess the qualifications of prospective employees fully when deciding which applicant to hire?

 

Doing so would give blacks a better opportunity to be hired.

 

That's my take.

 

Thanks. Bob.