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Martin Luther King’s Call for Subsidized Jobs: The Black Jobs Deficit, 2024

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“Instead of training for uncertain jobs, the policy of the government should be to subsidize American business to employ individuals whose education is limited…. employers could be granted reduced taxes if they employed difficult-to-place workers.”
–Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1968
It has been over 60 years since Martin Luther King, Jr inspired the nation at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Yet, joblessness remains a challenge today — especially for Black people. For the Black employment rate to match the White employment rate in 2024, an additional 1.5 million Black people would have needed to secure jobs. (Table 11). This disparity persists due to many of the same systemic issues — such as discrimination, unequal access to education and resources, and biased hiring practices — that have long plagued our economy. The additional 1.5 million workers would have generated roughly $70 billion in income, delivered benefits to their families, and increased the overall economic strength and health of the country.
Table 1
Martin Luther King, Jr. would be saddened by the continuing Black jobs deficit. Today, King is perhaps best known for the concluding racial-harmony section of the “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It is important to note the “Jobs” in the title of the march. One of the demands of the march was for “A massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers — Negro and white — on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages.”
As the quote above indicates, King continued to be concerned about achieving full employment for all until the end of his life. He supported direct government job creation and subsidized employment. He would have called for the government to engage in efforts to close the Black jobs deficit today.
Despite the current period of low unemployment, it is important to remember that barriers to employment persist for certain groups and regions. Black workers are one such group that continues to face systemic roadblocks to accessing job opportunities. Below are a few examples of successful programs that can be used as models to mitigate these barriers for Black workers.
The Connecticut Subsidized Training & Employment Program (Step Up) is a cooperative initiative between Connecticut’s regional Workforce Development Boards and the state’s Department of Labor. Step Up provides wage and training subsidies for organizations with 100 or fewer full-time employees to hire unemployed workers. A program like Step Up would create jobs in Black communities and help meet regional labor market needs. As of 2021, Step Up placed participants in a wide variety of roles, including engineering and office assistant positions, and created over 2,000 jobs—including at approximately 363 small manufacturers and 849 small businesses.
The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) connects thousands of individuals returning from incarceration to their communities each year. The program exemplifies a cost-effective, replicable model for connecting workers – including men and people of color experiencing structural barriers to employment – with jobs, training, and other vital services. Originally founded as a demonstration project in the 1970s in New York City, since 2011 CEO has successfully expanded to over a dozen states across the country, including Oklahoma and California.
Rapid Employment and Development Initiative Chicago (READI Chicago) is a community-based approach that reduces gun violence through subsidized job placements and behavioral health supports in Chicago. READI works by using street outreach to identify and engage men at “very high risk” for involvement in gun violence in an 18-month subsidized job and cognitive behavioral program. The program has been successful in lowering participant involvement in shootings and homicides, making their communities safer for all. Twenty months after the program began, it generated savings of $185,000 per participant (or on average $122 million in total) in decreased harm to society by violence.
These are just a few examples of thoughtful, creative policies that can address specific community needs while uplifting Black workers and their families. As we mark the Martin Luther King, Jr holiday, it should be a time for regional and national political leaders to consider new policies that will fulfill King’s legacy.