‘Should be a wake-up call’ for the city
Holding a thin ticket to riches in his calloused hand, Roy Inmon draws on his cigarette, then scratches at the paper surface.
Smoke curling around his eyes, the Midtown resident gazes at the lottery ticket.
“There’s jobs if you want to work,” he said. “I’ve always found jobs. I’m 60 years old. I’ve been fortunate all my life.”
Across this majority-black city, Inmon and more than 171,000 black men and women living within the Memphis city limits are employed amid the longest economic boom in U.S. history. But one odd fact makes this boom peculiar. It concerns 3,000 employed black men who, not long ago, lived within Memphis’ city limits and lately appear to have left.
When Inmon landed his current job as a janitor four years ago, nearly 78,000 black men living within Memphis’ city limits were employed. By 2017, about 75,000 black men had jobs, the most recent U.S. Census reports show.
Almost 3,000 fewer black men living in the city were employed, even though the jobless rate fell and hiring surged region-wide among all races. By 2017, nearly 96,000 black women living within Memphis’ city limits were employed, almost 6,000 more than in 2014.
What happened to the 3,000 men? It isn’t clear. No one knows exactly why the number of employed black males living in the city declined. It appears some moved to the suburbs, while others moved far away, a brain drain that appears to confound efforts to develop a high-wage economy.
“I think we are losing our best and brightest black males, who are leaving because there are better opportunities or higher salaries elsewhere,” University of Memphis social scientist Elena Delavega said. Inmon, wearing work jeans and Tshirt, draws on the cigarette, thinks for a moment, his eyes intent.
“I know a young guy left for Minnesota. He went up there looking for work. He came back,” Inmon said. “I don’t think some of these guys, I don’t think they want to work.”
Memphians can be harsh on Memphis. Ask where the 3,000 black men went, and many people concur with Inmon, say the men simply tired of holding down a job. Others say low wages tired them.
“A lot of people are leaving town just to get out of Memphis,” said Minnie Braswell, a retired state of Tennessee employee living in North Memphis. “They think they can do better.”
While it’s not clear if they left for better white-collar salaries, black male employment noticeably fell in one goodpay occupation.
About 4,200 black men living in the city were employed in management positions in 2017, compared to 5,900 black Memphis men in those jobs one year earlier. Among black males residing in the city, employment also decreased in the food preparation, material moving, security and transportation fields. Employment of black male city residents climbed in the production sector by 1,800 jobs to 8,800.
Memphis’ loss of black employed men doesn’t surprise Mark Yates.
“I can feel it. The economy isn’t robust enough,” said Yates, chief vision officer of the Black Business Association of Memphis. “I have more peers living in other cities around the country.”
Although employment has picked up in recent years, Greater Memphis’ economy appeared stronger in 2007, the year before the recession set in, than in 2017. The total value of goods and services produced by all enterprises in the ninecounty metro area declined to $62 billion in 2017 from $65.1 billion a decade earlier, according to inflation-adjusted figures compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Greater Memphis’ 4.7% drop compares to a 13.4% rise for all U.S. metro areas over the same decade.
Delavega, who studies poverty trends at U of M, looked at the U.S. Census reports that show the decline in 3,000 working black men living in the city. These Census numbers, the latest available on the government’s American Factfinder website, have not yet been updated beyond 2017. I asked if she thought the decline continued into 2018 and 2019. She emailed me yes.
“This should be a wake-up call for the city,” Delavega wrote. “When those who are our best and brightest leave, our future looks less encouraging.”
Delavega noted the number of unemployed black men living in the city remained almost unchanged. About 11,200 were on the 2017 jobless rolls, compared to about 11,500 in 2014, a key year for Greater Memphis’ economy. While the deep U.S. recession ended in 2009, hiring in metropolitan Memphis remained sluggish until 2014 and then surged region-wide.
Even so, the number of working-age black males residing in the city dropped. In 2017, black men 16 to 64 living in the city and either employed or looking for work numbered 121,939, down by 5,658 over three years, Delavega pointed out.
Black population paces Desoto growth
Within the Memphis city limits, the U.S. Census counted about 10,000 fewer households in 2017 than in 2009, the year the U.S. recession ended. The trend suggests the reviving economy gave people the means to move. Not all these people moved far away.
Home and apartment construction picked up in the Memphis suburbs. Immediately south of the city in Desoto County, Mississippi, for example, the population swelled by nearly 18,000 people to 173,000 between 2010 and 2017. The gain included about 14,000 black residents of all ages, U.S. Census reports show.
Just how many of the 3,000 black men moved the suburbs and how many left the area isn’t clear. If Memphis’ best and brightest are moving far away, the trend wouldn’t surprise Memphis entrepreneur Anthony Veasley.
Veasley, 44, said he served 18 years in the U.S. Air Force and returned to Memphis in 2012. He remembers his impression coming home.
“The city looked pretty much the same as when I’d left,” Veasley said. “It’s like the powers that be don’t want the city to be any bigger than it is.”
He recalled years ago. Firestone, Humko, International Harvester and dozens of other factories employed neighbors and relatives, but those plants faded.
“People worked. We were living good then. Where did all the good jobs go?” Veasley said. “I should be able to rattle off six or 10 big-time companies off the top of my head that are hiring, but after Fedex, UPS, Autozone, I can’t think of any. You don’t hear about them.”
Veasley, an information technology specialist working as a private contractor in Memphis, said the low wages common in the region amount to a recommendation for high students to follow his path: “Learn a trade. Be your own boss.”
‘You can live on what I make’
Three thousand black men no longer show up in the surveys. You’d think the remaining city population would look drastically poorer.
Instead, the high-income black population climbed within the city limits even as the middle-income black families fell in number.
Memphis, home to about 654,000 residents, shed 5,000 middle-income households to reach 78,000 households by 2017 earning $35,000 to $75,000. Economists figure automation played a part in diminishing mid-income occupations nationwide.
Meanwhile, black households within the Memphis city limits that earned over $100,000 rose in number between 2009 and 2017 to nearly 35,000 from 30,000. This includes 8,000 households earning more than $200,000.
Over the same time, about 72,000 black households in the city earned less than $20,000 in 2014, compared to about 67,000 in 2017.
Roy Inmon, who makes about $20,000 a year cleaning offices, hotels and residences, puts out his cigarette, shrugs at the empty lottery ticket.
“You can live on what I make,” he said. “You can’t live like no rock star, but you can live.”
Ted Evanoff, business columnist of The Commercial Appeal, can be reached at evanoff@commercialappeal.com and (901) 529-2292.