Blacks, Unmarried Women, and Government Jobs

Walter Russell Mead, discussing the symbiosis between the Democratic/government party and blacks, has perceptively noted the following truth:

middle class African Americans compared to whites tend to work disproportionately in public sector jobs or in private sector jobs like health care that are heavily subsidized by government transfers. A pension crisis for state or federal workers will hit African-American families harder, proportionately, than white ones; municipal layoffs and bankruptcies will have a disproportionate effect on both the African-Americans who depend on these services and those who are paid to provide them.

Let’s match Mead and raise him one by substituting “unmarried women” for “African-Americans” and “married couples” for “whites.” so that the passage reads:

middle class unmarried women compared to married couples tend to work disproportionately in public sector jobs or in private sector jobs like health care that are heavily subsidized by government transfers. A pension crisis for state or federal workers will hit unmarried women harder, proportionately, than married couples; municipal layoffs and bankruptcies will have a disproportionate effect on both the unmarried women who depend on these services and those who are paid to provide them.

The same federal government that emancipated blacks and gave black males the rights previously denied slaves later gave women those same rights. The civil rights revolution that first helped blacks toward equality in the 1950s and 1960s did the same for women a few years later (see chart). The same governments that practiced affirmative action to help blacks toward job equality then seamlessly did the same for women, helping create the current situation where blacks and women are in relation to other groups over-represented in government employment.

How could we not help women the same way we helped blacks? The one had to follow the other.

The problem for blacks, unmarried women, and others who rely on government employment and government pensions is the economy’s approaching shift away from inefficient government services and generous, union-backed government benefits. The problem for those who would take government benefits away is that people fight hardest to hold onto what they already have.