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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 18. Pre-War Labor Market Controls and Their Consequences for the Negro - 2. Other Economic Policies
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400 An American Dilemma
to their needs, than do whites. Nevertheless, since they are so much poorer
than whites, their representation on the relief rolls usually exceeds their
proportion in the population.
These programs must also have had important effects on supply and
demand in the labor market. They must have made it easier for old people
and women to stay off the labor market and thus decrease a labor supply
which was already much too heavy for the market.* Thus they must have
tended to make the competition for jobs less desperate in times of unem-
ployment. They also lighten the labor supply because sometimes benefits
are higher than ordinary wages. This cannot be helped, for, owing to the
extremely wide variation in wage rates and frequent under-employment,
the only alternative would be to keep all benefits below adequate standards.
It is certain, anyway, that it happens much more frequently to the Negro
than to the white clientele.
Public relief and social security have had other purposes, and their
effects in keeping away marginal white and Negro labor from the labor
market have been more or less incidental, even if not unimportant. On the
other hand, those programs must also have had a cumulative effect in
strengthening the bargaining power of labor. This, in its turn, must tend
to push up wages and improve other labor conditions, which again tend
to make the employment prospects for the marginal Negro labor less
favorable.
Prior to the present war boom few attempts were made by public
agencies to take positive measures in order to secure job opportunities for
Negroes. The Public Works Administration and the United States Hous-
ing Authority did try to reserve jobs for Negroes in their construction
work. Otherwise, no employment policy for Negroes and other similar
groups was even discussed much. The Employment Service, which experi-
enced a rapid development under the New Deal, is potentially a powerful
instrument for dealing with problems of this kind. But, almost until the
time when this country became involved in the War, little, if any, such
use was made of it. The usual procedure in this country, as in most other
lands, has just been to meet the requirements of the employers. If they
want white labor, they get it. If they want Negro labor, they get that.
Few employment offices have made any substantial attempts to do more
than this one-sided type of employers’ agency work—that is, they had not
actually tried to ‘‘sell” unemployed labor.® And it is probable that even
less has been done for Negroes than for whites until the present war
emergency changed the situation to a limited extent.*’
Nevertheless, it seems that a long-range development in this direction
is to be expected. The Employment Service is the natural starting point
* See Chapter 13, Sections 9 and 10.
**
See Chapter 1 9.
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