Page:1965 Moynihan Report.pdf/26

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in a way which promises the continued functioning of that family in meeting the responsibilities imposed upon it by our culture.23

Work is precisely the one thing the Negro family head in such circumstances has not received over the past generation.[1]

The fundamental, overwhelming fact is that Negro unemployment, with the exception of a few years during World War II and the Korean War, has continued at disaster levels for 35 years.

Once again, this is particularly the case in the northern urban areas to which the Negro population has been moving.

The 1930 Census (taken in the spring, before the depression was in full swing) showed Negro unemployment at 6.1 percent, as against 6.6 percent for whites. But taking out the South reversed the relationship: white 7.4 percent, non white 11.5 percent.

By 1940, the 2 to 1 white-Negro unemployment relationship that persists to this day had clearly emerged. Taking out the South again, whites were 14.8 percent, nonwhites 29.7 percent.

  1. An exception is the rather small impact of the ADC-U program since 1961, now expanded by Title V of the Economic Opportunity Act.

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