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An estimate of black gross job losses due to reduced defense expenditures

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The Review of Black Political Economy

Abstract

The reduction in defense expenditures, due to the end of the cold war, is estimated to have a disproportionately heavy impact on black gross job losses. Several solutions are discussed with the hope that if they are successful, the negative social behavior that is often associated with increased joblessness can be ameliorated.

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Notes

  1. JohnBrauer and John TepperMarlin, “Converting Resources from Military to Non-Military Uses,”Journal of Economic Perspectives 6 (4) (Fall 1992), 147.

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  2. Brauer and Marlin (1992), 147.

  3. Defense Conversion Commission (DCC).Adjusting to the Drawdown. Report. (Washington, D.C.: Defense Budget Project, August 1991), 12.

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  4. Defense Conversion Commission Report (1991), 40.

  5. Office of Technology Assessment (OTA).After the Cold War: Living With Lower Defense Spending (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, February 1992), 60.

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  6. Department of Defense, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Civilian Personnel Policy and Equal Opportunity.Black Americans in Defense of Our Nation (Government Printing Office, 1991), 10-28.

  7. Black Americans in Defense of Our Nation (1991), 88.

  8. Black Americans in Defense of Our Nation (1991), 286.

  9. A. WadeSmith, “Public Consciousness of Blacks in the Military,”Journal of Political and Military Sociology, 11 (Fall 1983), 299.

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  10. Ibid.

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  11. John S.Butler,Inequality in the Military: The Black Experience (Saratoga, CA: Century Twenty One, 1980), 103–104.

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  12. Ibid.

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  13. Ibid.

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  14. OTA Report (1992), 137.

  15. OTA Report (1992), 138.

  16. OTA Report (1992), 138.

  17. For instance C.P. Schmidt and S. Kosiak in their report,Potential Impact of Defense Spending Reductions on the Defense Industrial Labor Force by State (Washington, D.C., 1992), listed three budget decline options between fiscal years 1991–97: The first option was based on that proposed by former President Bush-24 percent total defense employment cuts between 1991–96; the second was called the Medium Cut Option, 27 percent, and the third was designated the Deep Cut Option, 29 percent. In the report by the OTA,After the Cold War: Living With Lower Defense Spending (1992), the authors present two budget cut scenarios between 1991–95: They average 19 percent for military personnel; 10 percent for DoD civilians; and 25 percent for defense industry employment. The report by the DCCAdjusting to the Drawdown (1991) estimates between 1991–97 a 25 percent military personnel reduction and a 20 percent reduction in DoD civilian personnel.

  18. See,Employment Status by Race and Sex for U.S. States (Population Division of the U.S. Census, Washington, D.C., 1992).

  19. The private sector defense firm component of these estimates assumes that the percent of blacks who work for private sector defense firms in each state, is equal to the percent of blacks in each state’s civilian labor force. This assumption was made because I was unable to obtain a source of actual figures for this component of the estimates. Over 53 percent of the occupations in these firms are in professional, technical, engineering, scientific and administrative support positions. Since these are positions in which blacks tend to be underrepresented, this component of the estimates are probably higher than the situation is in reality. The DoD civilian component of the estimate uses 14.6 percent as the aggregate percentage of blacks who work for the DoD as civilians, according to the DoD publicationBlack Americans in Defense of Our Nation (1991). Because I was unable to obtain a source that provided an actual state-by-state percentage breakdown, I assumed that this 14.6 percent figure was the same across each state. This probably overestimates the real figure in some states and underestimates it in others.

  20. This is consistent with the analysis of Brauer and Marlin (1992).

  21. Brauer and Marlin (1992), 154.

  22. Defense Conversion Commission Report (1991), 63-64.

  23. Defense Conversion Commission Report (1991), 61.

  24. Defense Conversion Commission Report (1991), 55.

  25. Defense Conversion Commission Report (1991), 53.

  26. The largest percentage of new armed service recruits come from the southern states (40.4 percent). See the OTA Report (1992), 130-131.

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  1. Roger C. Williams
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Williams, R.C. An estimate of black gross job losses due to reduced defense expenditures. The Review of Black Political Economy 22, 31–41 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02689971

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