half of Chicago young black males are unemployed

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valet

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Nearly half of young black men in Chicago out of work, out of school: report
Nearly half of young black men in Chicago are neither in school nor working, a staggering statistic in a bleak new youth unemployment report that shows Chicago to be far worse off than its big-city peers.

To 24-year-old Johnathan Allen, that's no surprise.

"It's right there in your face, you don't need statistics," Allen said as he testified before a room full of lawmakers and public officials Monday at an annual hearing about youth unemployment, where the report was presented. He encouraged everyone to walk down the street and witness how joblessness devastates communities.

Allen, who lives in Back of the Yards, said he got in trouble for drug dealing and gang banging — the "same old, same old," "everybody's story," he said — and was on house arrest and on parole when he connected with the Chicago Area Project, a nonprofit that works to prevent juvenile delinquency in disadvantaged communities. The group steered him toward a job in a youth mentorship program at the community group Fellowship Connection in Humboldt Park, where he helped with a documentary project and got his hands on a video camera for the first time.

"Young people can't be what they can't see," said Elam, a youth organizer with a group called Fathers Who Care.

Counting men and women together, 41 percent of black 20- to 24-year-olds were out of work and out of school in Chicago in 2014, compared with 18.7 percent of Hispanics and 6.7 percent of whites in the same age group.
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The racial divisions are also reflected among teenagers. Among 16- to 19-year-olds in Chicago, 14.3 percent of blacks are neither working nor in school, with boys much more affected than girls, compared with 6.8 percent of Latinos and 6 percent of whites.

Overall, 18 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds in Chicago are out of school and out of work, compared with 13.7 percent nationally, 16.4 percent in New York and 13.1 percent in Los Angeles.
 
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