Ex-cons confront labor market that’s likely to leave them behind
Eric Hughie felt lucky to land a job making eyeglasses in January. Then his job vanished, along with 40 million others, as the coronavirus tore through America.
But Hughie confronts an even steeper road than most of nation's newly unemployed: He is a convicted criminal.
"I'm afraid of the stereotype," says Hughie, 44, who served three years in state prison for possession of a weapon. "Who knows how people really might begin to treat you or judge you. I feel like that's really a strike against you in general."
The number of people with a criminal record has soared since the 1980s. Millions of these Americans, a disproportionate number of whom are Black, are struggling to find work so they can rebuild their lives. Their diminished outlook comes as aggressive police tactics have prompted a national soul-searching about the long history of racism in the U.S.
An estimated one out of every four people who've been incarcerated is currently unemployed. For many, the coronavirus job market looks grimmer than ever, raising the prospects of a return to crime.
"We're not good at successful reintegration in normal times, but right now I don't see that we're doing anything to mitigate the issues they're going to face," said Jennifer Doleac, an associate professor of economics at Texas A&M University who specializes in crime and discrimination. "I'm very pessimistic about what this means for the re-entry population."
High Unemployment
Data on the unemployment rate for Americans with a criminal history isn't well documented, but a number of studies prior to the coronavirus outbreak estimated it at well above 25%. One in 2018 by the Prison Policy Initiative found that formerly incarcerated people are unemployed at a rate of over 27%, and another by the National Employment Law Project said as many as 75% remain unemployed for as long as a year after their release.
The jobs most frequently available to people with criminal records are in restaurants, warehouses and construction, all of which can't be done at home, said Richard Bronson, the founder and chief executive officer of 70 Million Jobs, an organization that helps these people find employment. Because of this, Bronson estimates their jobless rate has risen to 50% from about 30% before the outbreak.
And even if they had a job before the pandemic, they usually get hired on a contingent or contract basis, meaning they're the first to be laid off in a recession.
"I don't expect a strong appetite for this population for a while," he said. "When unemployment was at 3.5% — a level that no economist thinks we'll be at real soon — there were still huge headwinds that we'd face."
The U.S. prison population was 1.47 million at the end of 2018, and while the total has been falling, Black Americans are incarcerated at a much higher rate than any other race. In 2018, the rate was 5.8 times more for Black men than White men and 1.8 times higher for Black women than White women, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Ultimately, they experience higher unemployment because businesses see people with criminal backgrounds as a liability, even though they can contribute productively, according to Bronson.