(New York Times) — What will the shrinking of the public sector mean for the black middle class? The black unemployment rate nationwide is 16.2 percent, far higher than the 8.7 percent rate for whites. Yet nearly 20 percent of black workers are employed by the government, according to numbers cited in an article by the political scientist Walter Russell Mead. With states and cities under pressure to cut back spending on public employees, what effect might lower benefits, and fewer jobs, have on the economic prospects for African-Americans in particular?
