Widening the global search for cheaper labor, corporations are exploiting the peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America at obscene levels while U.S. cities are left reeling without jobs. The official unemployment rate in the U.S. is currently 4.3 percent, but for Blacks who are most affected by job loss, unemployment is at the depression level of 8.9 percent. White unemployment is 3.6 percent. High unemployment is a major factor but not the only reason why many African Americans live below the poverty level. The result is a vicious cycle of poverty that plagues our communities from city to city and generation to generation.
Globalization further exacerbates poverty by privatizing government services on a national level.
Witness the continued bailout of the new capitalism in Russia. Evidence of privatization is seen in other ways as well. The closing or privatization of public hospitals places the poor, especially children, at perilous risk. Privatization is ending access to education through the elimination of remediation and tuition increases while decreasing government aid. Ending or severely restricting access to education guarantees an uneducated population, higher crime rates, and, moreover, assures the expansion of the prison industrial complex.