The Black-White Unemployment Gap

Economist Gbenga Ajilore on the persistence of the black-white unemployment gap — PLUS: everything you need to know about the “public charge” rule now that it’s taken effect, with Connie Choi of the Protecting Immigrant Families campaign. Subscribe to Off-Kilter on iTunes.

This week on Off-Kilter…Many economists are touting that we’ve reached “full employment.” Meanwhile, in addition to boasting that he’s created the “best economy ever,” Trump is also claiming to be the “best president ever” for African-Americans because of the declining black unemployment rate on his watch. But as economist Gbenga Ajilore points out in a recent report, while black unemployment may be at some of the lowest levels we’ve seen, it remains twice the white unemployment rate, even in the current tight labor market. What’s more, every year since the federal government began collecting data to measure it starting in 1972, the black unemployment rate has more often than not remained twice that of whites. Rebecca sat down with Gbenga to unpack why that gap has stubbornly persisted despite strides in civil rights protections, increases in educational attainment, and despite the current tight labor market; what his analysis tells us about how we could finally close the gap; and whether we can really consider the U.S. at “full employment” until we do. Gbenga’s report is titled “On the Persistence of the Black-White Unemployment Gap.”

And later in the show… On Monday of this week, one of Trump’s cruelest attacks on immigrant families took effect. That’s his so-called “public charge” rule, which immigration experts are saying will end America’s family-based system of immigration as we know it, while also forcing immigrant families to make impossible choices between keeping their family together and making sure their kids have food and medical care. For a refresher on the history of the public charge rule, what Trump’s new policy will mean for families, and an update on what families need to know now that the rule is taking effect, Rebecca spoke with Connie Choi, a field manager and strategist at the National Immigration Law Center, which co-chairs the Protecting Immigrant Families campaign (with the Center for Law and Social Policy).

This week’s guests:

• Gbenga Ajilore, senior economist at the Center for American Progress (@gbenga_ajilore)
• Connie Choi, field manager & strategist, National Immigration Law Center/Protecting Immigrant Families campaign (@NILC)

For more on this week’s topics:

• Check out Gbenga’s report, “On the Persistence of the Black-White Unemployment Gap.”
• For more on the public charge rule: get up to speed in this explainer from CBS News, read this powerful NYT op-ed by Catherine Ramirez, and then go join the fight at www.protectingimmigrantfamilies.org #ProtectFamilies.
• Wondering what the public charge rule might mean for your family or someone you know? Don’t miss the PIF campaign’s handy Know Your Rights page and screening tool.

This week’s transcript:

♪ I work and get paid like minimum wage

sights to hit the class by the end of the day

hot from downtown into the hood where I stay

the only place I can afford ’cause my block ain’t saved

I spend most of my time working…. ♪

REBECCA VALLAS (HOST): Welcome to Off-Kilter, powered by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. I’m Rebecca Vallas.

On Monday of this week, one of Trump’s cruelest attacks on immigrant families took effect, his so-called public charge rule. For a refresher on the history of the rule, what Trump’s new policy will mean for families, and what families need to know now that the rule is taking effect, I spoke with Connie Choi, a field manager and strategist at the National Immigration Law Center, which co-chairs the Protecting Immigrant Families campaign fighting against that rule.

But first, many economists are touting that we’ve reached full employment. Meanwhile, in addition to boasting that he’s created the, “best economy ever!” Trump is also claiming to be the, “best president ever for African-Americans” because of the low black unemployment rate. But as economist Gbenga Ajilore points out in a recent analysis, while black unemployment may be at some of the lowest levels we’ve seen, it remains twice the white unemployment rate, even in the current tight labor market. What’s more, in every year since the federal government began collecting data to measure it starting in 1972, the black unemployment rate has, more often than not remained, twice that of whites. So, I sat down with Gbenga to unpack why that gap has so stubbornly persisted despite strides in civil rights protections, increases in educational attainment, and despite the current tight labor market. We also talk about what his analysis tells us about how we can finally close that gap, and importantly, whether we can really consider the U.S. at quote-unquote “full employment” until we do. Gbenga’s new report is titled On the Persistence of the Black-White Unemployment Gap. Let’s take a listen.

Gbenga, thanks so much for taking the time to come back on the show.

GBENGA AJILORE: Oh, thank you for having me.

VALLAS: So, just to sort of kick off, your report is titled On the Persistence of the Black-White Unemployment Gap. And it feels like the place to start is really with some of the numbers. So, I mentioned up top in my intro there’s this kind of stark headline disparities statistic that really should get people’s attention about the black unemployment rate being twice as high as that of whites. And you took a look at this and also with something of a historical perspective.

AJILORE: Yeah, because I’ve been monitoring the black-white unemployment gap over the last year and each month with the jobs report coming out. And it’s one of those things where people kind of knew that it was always higher, but it was never really kind of concentrated. And we never talked about it explicitly. So, I wanted to really put a whole report out, kind of focusing on that gap and going back to 1972 to measure that. And what struck out to me was that it kept being double the rate no matter what. And the only time that there was actually a significant time it dropped below double the rate was during the Great Recession. And that’s when everyone was losing their job. So, it’s one of those things that we talk about unemployment, we talk about policy. And sometimes the unemployment rate goes up or goes down, or some people are doing better. It stayed the same, and that just struck me.

VALLAS: Yeah. And with that point about the recession, which really jumped out to me from your report as well, it sort of puts a finer point on why, at the time, some people were pointing out that the gap had closed in a way that if you didn’t look any deeper, it might’ve seemed like a good thing on its face. But it was because white workers were facing the same levels of unemployment that black workers had already been very familiar with.

AJILORE: Right. So, it’s almost like white people are caught up to black people in terms of unemployment. But that’s not a policy prescription. You know, you can’t say that to close this gap, we should just have a recession. So, it’s one of those things that when the economy started to recover, and we’re in the longest recovery ever, we still see that same twice the rate continually. So, it’s one of the things where I wanted to talk about it has to be more than these individual pathologies that we always argue about. That it has to be more structural, it has to be systemic, and our policies need to tackle that.

VALLAS: Yeah, I want to get into that kind of structural versus more neoliberal individual pull yourself up by the bootstraps analysis. Because that’s a big part of kind of the point you make in this piece. I really do want to come back to that. You also look in the sort of data analytics part of this report at some of the disparities, which are actually even significantly worse in a lot of metro areas, and particularly majority black metro areas.

AJILORE: Yeah. So, those are Brookings studies from last year that compared metro-area gaps in black unemployment rate. And the one that jumps out is actually here in DC where the black unemployment rate was 12 percent, and for whites it’s 2 percent. So, we’re looking at a ratio of 6 versus 2. Other places in Baltimore, Detroit they’re then 3, 4 percent so much, four times the rate. And so, it’s one of those things that in general, we have this huge gap. But in these metro areas, which actually have the highest level of employment, the most jobs, it’s even worse.

VALLAS: And you’ve also taken a look at what the data tell us when you sort of look at specific demographic groups. And you don’t see a lot of differences when you cut across different demographics. This is a persistent gap.

AJILORE: No, you break it down by age. So, just last month, if you look at the youth unemployment rate, so age 16 to 19, for black youth, it’s 22 percent. For white youth it’s 10 percent. So, double. You go black men are 5.6 percent versus 2.9 percent for white men. For women, it’s 5.2 versus 2.7. So, when you break it down, you cut it across. And even worse, you look at by education, it’s double. But one of the things I want to point out is that there was this EPI study, and also, CAP did a report from last December, that looked at education differences. So, if you look at a African-American with a college degree, their unemployment rate is the same as a white person with a high school degree. And so, it’s all these things that just kind of persist, and you have to say there’s something more going on here.

VALLAS: So, part of what you did in sort of looking to answer that question, what is going on here? Why has this gap continued to persist despite real policy changes, despite civil rights protections, and despite this current economy and this tight labor market that is pushing the overall unemployment rate down incredibly. Which is, and we should note, a positive thing, right, on the merits.

AJILORE: Right.

VALLAS: So, you started to look into okay, why has this been such a persistent gap, despite all of those trends, all of those positive changes? And to do that, you actually dug into some other measures that look at this question a little bit differently and used sort of different methodologies than the unemployment rate per se. One of those is the labor force participation rate. Another is something called EPOP. I want you to explain both of those. They’re sort of nerd heaven for economists, but probably could use a little bit of explaining.

AJILORE: Right. So, one of the things with the unemployment rate, so the one that we always measure is called U3. And that’s the number of people who are unemployed, divided by the labor force. And the labor force has a very specific definition of people who are actively looking for work. So, that’s in the last four weeks, have you tried to find a job? So, problem with that measure is that it doesn’t include people who are considered disconnected, people who have dropped out of the labor force. So, we have these other measures. So, you look at the labor force participation rate, and that’s labor force divided by population. So, you want to see how many people are kind of going into the labor market who are trying to find a job. And so, one of the things I do in the report is look at that rate, compare that gap, the racial gap. And one of the things is that gap is closing. So, what that says is that more African-Americans are joining the labor force or trying to find a job. So, that’s closing. So, that should tell us that unemployment gap should close.

The other one is EPOP, which stands for employment to population ratio. And so, you just say, how many people are employed, divided by the total population. So, we avoid the issues of the labor force and disconnected individuals. And the racial gap between whites and blacks in EPOP is also starting to close. So, what that tells us is that we have these other labor market outcomes. The gaps are closing, which means the unemployment rate should close. But the fact that those gaps, racial gaps are closing, but unemployment’s not closing, that speaks to the structural issue.

VALLAS: Yeah. And so, to sort of sum that up, basically you’re seeing the unemployment rate for black workers should have really gone down. The gap between black workers and white workers really should’ve narrowed based on what these other measures are telling us. But it hasn’t. So, something else is going on, and that’s really what you dig into. So, what did you find in kind of looking at the potential drivers, looking at the potential explanations here?

AJILORE: The simple explanation is discrimination, hiring discrimination. And in the economics literature, there’s been a big push to really try to tackle this. And so, they use audit studies where they look at you take a résumé, and you say, okay, these are two people who are the exact same. The only difference is there’s going to be some sort of demographic change. So, either it’s gender, race, disability status, things like that. And so, for African Americans, they find that given the same one, that they’re less likely to get a callback, less likely to get hired. And so, we just have this persistent hiring discrimination that’s been occurring forever.

The other problem is the issue of mass incarceration. And so, anyone who goes through the criminal justice system always has a difficult time of entering the labor market. And so, we’ve seen the rise of mass incarceration during the ’80s and ’90s, that that’s had an adverse effect. And so, those things that. And what’s worse about this is that it kind of intersects with hiring discrimination so that a lot of times people won’t hire African Americans because of the assumption of having been through the criminal justice system. And so, those are the things where you may, African Americans may join the labor force, but they’re not getting hired at the same rate. And so, that’s the kind of thing. And that’s the kind of structural, systemic issue that we have to tackle.

VALLAS: Yeah. And you were mentioning some of the kind of studies that’ve been done around résumés with names that maybe sound one way or another in terms of race and just the persistent findings there, right?

AJILORE: Yes.

VALLAS: Which really can’t be overstated. There’ve been similar studies that’ve been done looking at the impact of a criminal record. And I need to give a shout out to Devah Pager, who did a lot of that work during her important time and contributions in this field. And the findings there are similarly stark, right? The chances of getting a job offer or a callback if you are a person with a résumé that’s the same resume, but the only difference is you have that criminal record, I mean, you are less than half as likely to get that job or that job offer or that callback. So, just huge, huge stigma that we see that really is contributing here. And your research is really kind of putting some numbers to that.

So, I want to kind of marry the analysis you’re describing in terms of the drivers of this persistent gap to the structural point you were making before and kind of the reason that it is important how we look at this problem and where we place the onus, where we place the blame. Is it on the individual who just isn’t trying hard enough? Or is it to recognize sort of structural inequities and barriers? And you really argue in this piece, and this is kind of a through line with a lot of your work, but this report is definitely one of its kind of chief objectives seems to be to push us to move to a framework that recognize and acknowledges those structural inequities and barriers that you’re describing, rather than sort of quietly and silently and tacitly continuing with this kind of more neoliberal framework that blames people of color for not being able to make up that gap.

AJILORE: Yeah. And the reason why I’m really pushing this is that over the last 50 years, people have been getting an education, trying to get skills, doing job training programs, doing apprenticeships. People are doing the things that they were told to do to be able to get jobs, and they’re just not getting jobs the same rate. So, one of the interesting things is that if you look at some of these labor market outcomes, say like earnings and wages, wages have been going up in the last year for African-Americans. But this is 2020. The Great Recession ended 10 years, ago 2010. And so, it’s like, okay, it took 10 years for African Americans to finally get something, kind of a foothold. But there’s concerns about recession that might be coming up. There’s concerns especially with what’s happening with the coronavirus. And so, if we hit a recession, these are the first people who are going to lose their jobs. And this is the kind of thing that always happens: you know, last hired, first fired. And so, what happens is that, and that’s what we’ve seen in that figure that I put it in the report, that that rate is always double no matter what happens.

And so, the kind of thing is we have to focus on other issues. We’ve done the experiment, the neoliberal experiment. And we see that doesn’t work or only works for a specific few. And so, now we need to focus on the other things that, you know, you get an education, you get job training, you should get, the rate should be closed. You should be getting employed at a higher rate. But that’s not happening. So, now let’s look at the systemic things. Let’s look at the other issues. Let’s tackle hiring discrimination. Let’s have criminal justice reform. One of the things about criminal justice reform we always talk about well, people who have a record, what can we do for them? But the best way to prevent people from being harmed in the labor market by incarceration is by not incarcerating them in the first place. So, let’s focus on those things, too. There’s all these things that we have to focus on that we haven’t done before that we need to do now that’s going to improve.

And then actually, the one point that, you know, when we talk about racial gaps, everyone’s like, well, we need to help black people. But what that misses is that we are actually harming ourselves. When you have that gap, that gap for 50 years, that’s a number of people who would be productive, who would help our economy out. And so, we’re actually harming ourselves by having these gaps maintained.

VALLAS: So, I want to actually quote a line from your report that really, I think, summarizes this nicely and wraps a lot of the points that you just made into kind of a nice little bow. You write, “Labor market policies need to focus on closing the unemployment gaps between whites and African Americans rather than simply lowering unemployment. To accomplish this, solutions must focus on breaking down structural barriers.” It sounds like a really simple point, but it’s actually, there’s a lot kind of packed in there. If we continue with what seems like, and sort of is carried out as a sort of a race-neutral conversation about trying to get to full employment, trying to get to the lowest unemployment rate overall that we can, that will and can allow to continue the persistent gaps that have been around for 50 years.

AJILORE: Yeah, because it’s one of those things where, we have that people come talk about how great the unemployment rate for African Americans is. And in the most recent month, it was 6 percent. And people are celebrating that. Yet the white unemployment rate was 6 percent in December of 2013, and no one was happy then. So, the question is, why should we be happy for black people at that rate when we weren’t for white people? And so, we have to kind of reframe our thinking and tell a different narrative. And so, you always talk about full employment, and it’s like full employment is like 4 percent. But if African-Americans have a unemployment of 6 percent, can the economy as a whole be at full employment? And so, again, we have to reorient our thinking to include everybody in these labor market numbers.

VALLAS: Yeah. And would any economists possibly deign to consider us at full employment if white unemployment were at 6 percent, right?

AJILORE: Exactly.

VALLAS: I mean, imagine if it were flipped.

AJILORE: Exactly.

VALLAS: In a bonkers world that we would have that kind of upside down situation in disparities, right, considering where we are right now. But imagine that. There’s no way an economist could possibly call that full employment.

AJILORE: Right.

VALLAS: So, you started to get into some of the policy recommendations that you push for. And you mentioned just the persistence of hiring discrimination. It feels like as much as that may seem old hat and obvious to a lot of people, it really does bear repeating, given that there is this kind of persistent myth that somehow, we’re past hiring discrimination on the basis of race. That just doesn’t happen anymore. It’s 2020, Gbenga, right? Employers aren’t discriminating against people who are different races from them anymore, right? No. But it bears repeating the research tells us this is still happening, and it is showing up in the data, as your analysis confirms.

But I also want to dig into that criminal justice section of your report as well, and you actually just brought up a little bit of it. You mention, and I could not agree more, that we need to be tackling mass incarceration on the front end so that people don’t end up with a criminal record in the first place. And that, obviously, is the most powerful solution that we have available. But I do want to offer a friendly disagreement, which is that we have 70–100 million people who currently have criminal records and for whom we do owe them the opportunity to actually access a second chance. You know, that’s a big part of the work that I do. And so, of course, I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to thank you for this research but to also note that it seems to me to be an incredibly stark evidence-based case for the widespread clearing of criminal records so that those people who have had their lives dismantled by mass incarceration can really have that shot at moving on. And it seems, to me, quite clear that one of the outcomes of policies like automating record clearing so that people can actually have access to that remedy even if they can’t afford a lawyer and navigate a complicated process and afford filing fees and on and on is that it would take a huge bite out of the persistent gaps in black-white unemployment.

AJILORE: It definitely would. And so, it’s very important with criminal justice reform to focus on both ends because we had that long-standing mass incarceration issue. And so, we see this where there is racial disparities in who goes to jail, which means there’s racial disparities in people coming out, which also leads into these structural issues. And so, one of the things we have to think about is once you clear that record, then you’re able to get people to, you know, we get employers to start hiring people. And so, we have a number of different programs. So, like the clean slate that you had mentioned. There was discussions about Ban the Box, which is in 35 states and a lot of other cities to really tackle. And one of things I like about these policies is that they’re very targeted. Because a lot of times you talk about race-neutral policies, and race-neutral policies don’t work because our laws were race-conscious. So, you need to have race-conscious laws to combat the ones that happened before. And so, when you have these programs that are targeted to say, okay, these are people who were harmed, and we need to reverse that harm, these are policies specifically targeted to those people. And that’s the kind of thing that’s going to help close this gap.

VALLAS: Yeah, and good timing to be having this conversation as the House of Representatives takes up, actually, a hearing in its Judiciary Committee this week, actually looking at some of these issues: looking at reentry, looking at what is the next set of steps that we can take after the First Step Act that maybe are focused on righting some of the wrongs that our society has done, particularly, and inflicted upon black and brown families in the incredible numbers that they have. So, good timing, I think, for folks to be seeing this work and recognizing the centrality of this policy agenda to the work that we need to do to close the black-white unemployment gap.

Gbenga, I’m interested to hear you talk a little bit also about what equity initiatives as part of a workforce development strategy might look like. That’s a big part of what you look at in this report as well.

AJILORE: Yeah. So, this is the kind of policy solution that my colleague Livia Lam on the econ policy team has worked on is that a lot of times we talk about job training. We talk about upskilling the skills gap.

VALLAS: Can I just stop you for a second and say upskilling is like my least favorite jargon word that policy people have ever come up with.

AJILORE: Yeah.

VALLAS: Does that bother you? Does that one bother you?

AJILORE: It does.

VALLAS: [laughs]

AJILORE: Because what it does is that, again, it’s one of the things that places the burden on the individual.

VALLAS: Yes!

AJILORE: And the problem with these programs is that it’s quote-unquote “race-neutral.” But again, when our systems are not race-neutral, we have to have targeted programs. We have to say these are the people that we’re specifically focused on because these are people who don’t have the same opportunities of others. So, your workforce development program has to have these equity initiatives, has to target people. So, speak about the people, you know, African Americans in this area. Maybe it’s Native people on tribes. Maybe it’s Hispanic people in the Southwest. But be very specific; be very targeted. Rural communities are very diverse. You know, you may want to say like Eastern Kentucky. You know, what do we do? We have to have specifically-targeted programs that are locally kind of focused that to be able to be successful. That you can’t have some just general, well, if you just get more coding, doing that thing, that stuff doesn’t work. Because you have to be intentional. You have to be targeted and then find the things that really are going to work and be helpful.

VALLAS: Yeah. And I feel like just going back to upskilling because now it’s in my mind now that you said it. Ugh.

AJILORE: Sorry.

VALLAS: It is — [laughs] It’s like some people say their least favorite word is “moist,” right?

AJILORE: Yeah.

VALLAS: I think mine is “upskill.” You heard it here first! But I think the reason I go back to it is because it, to me, sums up so much of that sort of framework fallacy that you were describing and bemoaning before, because it conveys immediately to the person who hears the word that the problem is with the worker. They just don’t have enough. They aren’t enough. They aren’t good enough. They don’t have enough skills. We need to improve them as a person before they can actually be marketable. And that’s sort of what’s inherent in it as opposed to wait, they might actually be facing a broken labor market that only works for some people and that’s shutting them out.

AJILORE: And I think the biggest problem and why the word “upskilling” might be so triggering is who it’s used with.

VALLAS: Yeah.

AJILORE: Like we don’t hear people who are wealthy like, oh, when you go to a private school or you go to college, they don’t say it’s upskilling.

VALLAS: Yeah.

AJILORE: But someone who’s from a low-income area, from a urban area, it’s like oh, you need upskilling. And so, that’s a problem. The way we talk about these things and who we talk about it with, that’s kind of the issue. And so, we have to kind of, again, treat people more equally and talk about people more equally, which we don’t.

VALLAS: So, we can’t get into the 2020 election and specific candidates. And it’s tempting, particularly on the precipice of the South Carolina primary and where a lot of these issues are starting to get talked about as the media remembers that maybe they should think a little bit about issues that matter to black people, that time in every presidential cycle, of course, I say with a cynical smile. But on the other side of the coin, we’re also starting to hear a lot from the Trump administration, even more than we have to date, as they start to, it seems, make the jump to think a little ahead to November about what their chief messages are going to be and the case for trump getting to hang onto the White House. One of the big things that we are hearing them really dial the volume up on is how good a president Trump has been for black people. In the last couple of minutes that we have, just because that gets said all the time and sometimes repeated fairly uncritically in mainstream press, what do folks need to hear? And what do you think in response to that claim?

AJILORE: I just look at the gap again. You know, African-American unemployment is 6 percent. It was 6 percent for white people in December 2013. And so, if it’s so good, why is it still double? Why hasn’t it changed even through a good labor market, even through a good economy? And as you look at that, and you say, okay, well, what’s happening? And so, it’s just there hasn’t been — There’s a kind of thing that administration and a lot of people across the aisle, is like there’s certain things that African Americans should be satisfied with. It’s like we’ve given you these crumbs. You should be happy. And this is something that’s kind of persisted. And it’s one of those things where you just you have to really put this administration’s feet to the fires. Like, why? Why is it good? If it’s so good, why isn’t the unemployment rate 3 percent? You know, if it’s so good, why are wages only going up now as opposed to a couple years ago? And so, you really have to look at the data, say, okay, if I was talking about this with white people, if I was talking about this with wealthy people, would they be happy? And if the answer is no, then he has not been good for African-Americans.

VALLAS: Gbenga Ajilore is a senior economist at the Center for American Progress, where his work focuses on regional economic development, macro policy, and racial and economic justice. His new report that we’ve been talking about as part of this episode is titled On the Persistence of the Black-White Unemployment Gap. You can, of course, find it on our nerdy syllabus page. And Gbenga, thanks so much for taking the time to come back on the show.

AJILORE: No, thank you for having me.

VALLAS: Don’t go away. More Off-Kilter after the break. I’m Rebecca Vallas. [hip hop music break]

You’re listening to Off-Kilter. I’m Rebecca Vallas. On Monday of this week, one of Trump’s cruelest attacks on immigrant families took effect. That’s his so-called public charge rule, which immigration experts are saying will end America’s family-based system of immigration as we know it, while also forcing immigrant families to make cruel and impossible choices like between keeping their family together and making sure their kids have food and medical care. For a refresher on the history of the public charge rule, what Trump’s new policy will mean for families, and what families need to know now that the rule is finally taking effect, I sat down with Connie Choi. She’s a field manager and strategist at the National Immigration Law Center, which co-chairs the Protecting Immigrant Families Campaign with the Center for Law and Social Policy. The Protecting Immigrant Families Campaign, of course, is the core campaign fighting against the public charge rule. Let’s take a listen.

Connie, thanks so much for taking the time to join the show.

CONNIE CHOI: Thank you for the opportunity.

VALLAS: So, before we get to what’s taking effect this week and who’s likely to be impacted and kind of all the questions that people probably have swirling in their minds about what they need to know or might need to know for their clients, for direct service providers and others who are listening, I’d really love for you to offer something of a history on the public charge rule. This is not a new concept. It’s something that has a very, very long and sordid history.

CHOI: Mmhmm. Yes, you’re right. The public trust tests have been a part of federal immigration law for over 100 years and was narrowly applied to identify people who may depend on the government as their primary sort of support. The public charge test actually has, as you mentioned, some unsavory history, where it is rooted in so-called [unclear] laws stipulating who could and who could not reside in colonial towns. These laws governed who could and could not enter states like New York and Massachusetts in the early years of our country, and really, for the past 100 years have been used to discriminate against single, divorced, widowed, and pregnant women, for example, even if they were self-supporting, present occupational skills, and whatnot. And for example, in the Great Depression of the 1930s, people also used it to remove workers of color, specifically Mexican workers, including those with jobs on the grounds that they had used some city and county benefits. So, really a long and sordid history with regards to public charge.

VALLAS: And really, a long history of being very central in basically the government’s ongoing quest to severely limit immigration when it comes to nonwhite countries, when it comes to developing countries. And it also has a lot of ties to the Chinese Exclusion Act. Talk a little bit about that, if you can.

CHOI: Sure. It was basically introduced as a cadre of exclusionary laws, including the Chinese Exclusion Act in the 1880s as well. And so, yeah, really was designed as a way to particularly keep out people of color from this country.

VALLAS: So, now what is it that Trump is proposing in this moment, or really it’s actually taking effect, but it was through a proposed notice of rulemaking kind of him, as we’ve said many times in talking about this rule on this show, this was not an act of Congress or legislation. This was President Trump kind of taking matters into his own hands in the White House and making a set of really broad, sweeping changes administratively. Talk a little bit about what that set of proposals that kind of blows open this previously narrow public charge rule does and how it’s structured.

CHOI: Sure. So, maybe what I can talk about is the public charge test as it was originally devised before these changes were proposed. And then we’ll talk about kind of the buckets of changes that we’re seeing being implemented today. So, it’s basically, public charge is a test where the government will essentially determine if a person is likely to be primarily dependent on the government. And on those grounds, a government official can deny him or her entry to the U.S. through a visa or lawful permanent residency, better known as the green card. There are also supportability laws that attach to public charge, but it is very limited in scope. And really, to determine this, an officer considers the applicant’s whole situation, called the totality of circumstances test. It includes consideration of a person’s age, their financial status, their health, family status, and educational skills and really originally considered two types the benefits: long-term institutional care and cash assistance for income maintenance. And there’s actually some immigrants that are exempt from the test all together, such as naturalized citizens, refugees and asylees, and survivors of domestic violence.

So, what does Trump propose? That basically the administration have changed this test dramatically, as it’s applied here, for those seeking visas and green cards and as well as abroad. And essentially, earlier this year, the Supreme Court rubber stamped this new test to be implemented as of Monday, while lawsuits challenging this regulation are pending in courts across the country. And there’s three primary buckets of changes. Number one, it changes the definition of public charge to apply to anyone who is primarily dependent to someone that receives one or more public benefits. There’s also changes to the totality of circumstances test, which now includes a whole host of new enumerated and weighted factors. And what this new test essentially gives is negative weight to children or seniors, to persons with limited English-proficiency, to a poor credit history, with a limited education, or a large family. And there’s really only one positively weighted factor: having more than 250 percent of the federal poverty line, which essentially amounts to about $64,000 a year for a family of four, which is higher than the national median income. Thirdly, the new test expands the type of benefits considered, to include key programs that provide no income support, but merely help participants address their basic needs. So, these programs include non-emergency Medicaid with limited exceptions, SNAP — better known as food stamps — low-income subsidies, and as well as housing assistance such as Section 8 housing vouchers. It also stands the test to apply in request to extend non-immigrant visas or to change their non-immigrant status. So, for example, from a student visa to an employment visa.

What I will say, is that what I described is a hugely wonky test. It’s complicated and really hard to grasp, right? And then these changes are actually a dramatic departure from current policy. And so, when you’re looking at the three buckets of the changes that I outlined, it will seriously impact and damage the ability of our communities to thrive and be healthy. And really, it’s skewed. It’s skewed against low-income immigrants, against seniors, against people of color, against those with disabilities, and really shows the administration’s bias of favoring the wealthy.

VALLAS: So, I’m just going to pause you there, because you’re right, it gets very wonky. But just to sort of back up a level and kind of summarize, basically what you’re describing is that the Trump administration, through this rulemaking, not an act of Congress, not allowing debate over legislation, but through an active administrative rulemaking, basically fiat, the Trump administration has taken this more than 100-years-old policy that used to be fairly narrow, even if somewhat nefariously used in a lot of different points in our history, and has effectively broadened it out, put it on steroids, made it this hugely far-reaching test in terms of who would fail it and has made it one of the anchors of the ways that they’ve been trying to kind of find backdoor strategies for dismantling and really limiting our immigration system in this country. So, it went, as you described, from a very narrow test that really had to be about cash benefits to now something that broadly includes a whole bunch of different programs, many of which have nothing to do with cash, and which — and I want to throw in some of the analysis that some of the groups that’ve been working on this rule for some time have done, analysis by the Center for American Progress, by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and a handful of others who have looked at this — they’ve sort of asked the question, well, if we took this test, now that the Trump administration has so incredibly broadened it out and made it such a huge set of potential reasons to keep people out of this country, what if we applied it to Americans who are already here? And how many of us would fail that test? And the answer is about one in three. About one in three Americans would fail the new public charge test that Trump is setting up if they had to take it in order to be able to stay in this country. So, just to underscore what gets kind of wonky, and we can get lost in the trees a little bit, but that broader policy consequence that you’re describing here.

CHOI: Absolutely. I mean, just as of Monday, the National Foundation for American Policy basically projected that his policies like public charge, like the expanded travel ban, like the health insurance mandate, for example, will basically decline legal immigration by 2021 by 30 percent.

VALLAS: So, huge effects that we’re likely to see from these policies. So, I want to also just note: you sort of mentioned inherent in some of those criteria that get looked at in this new test, you mentioned — and this really bears repeating — that in a lot of ways, this test is being structured as a wealth test, right?

CHOI: Mmhmm.

VALLAS: And that’s really kind of the through line, not just in looking at whether someone is likely to access certain types of basic assistance programs, but also in really asking the question of, you know, nuts and bolts, can someone actually pay a cash bond?

CHOI: Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, unfortunately, when it comes to targeting working-class families, it hasn’t been just public charge. President Trump has actually used or attempted to use the full weight of the federal government to pass legislation to challenge established case precedent most relevant public charge, and that’s harsh regulations that systematically target people of color, low-income people of color, and institutes a wealth test across the board. So, for example, there was a social security rule that would eventually affect the ability for limited-English-proficient folks to access department benefits. There’s another Homeland Security rule that disallows providing proof of receipt of a new type of benefit as an automatic qualifier for a fee waiver for various immigration applications. There’s a housing rule to deny public housing to undocumented immigrants living in this type of housing. So, across the board, he’s basically trying to contravene what the overall guideposts of our immigration system is supposed to be, which is being provided safe haven for refugees and asylees, for families to reunite, and for immigrants to basically live and work with dignity in their life here.

VALLAS: Well, and you’re providing really important context to how this rule fits in with so many of the other attacks that we’ve seen from this administration on immigrant families in particular, but obviously on working-class families across the board. And there’s other policies as well that have tremendous similarities and really parallels. These are not ones that I’m pointing out for the first time. Many others have pointed these out as well. I actually want to quote a New York Times op ed by a professor of Latin American and Latino studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her name is Catherine Ramírez. And this was an op ed that ran in conjunction with the public charge rule taking effect earlier this week. She writes, “By setting its sights on petitions filed by family members of prospective permanent residents, this wealth test,” and she’s referring to the public charge, “attacks a core principle of our immigration law: Family reunification.” And she talks in that context about the similarities and parallels between this public charge rule and the Trump administration actions to separate families at the border. Talk a little bit about how one of the effects that you and others who’ve studied this rule are worried will happen is not just about increased poverty among immigrant families and some people not being able to come to this country. You and others have also really raised the specter of this flying in the face of family reunification.

CHOI: Absolutely. I mean, when it comes to the ability of families to stay together, this rule is going to have huge impacts in that ability. I mean, so, for specifically children…. So, there’s actually, just to take a step back, we’re going to see a lot of directly-impacted individuals with regards who are low-income and access these benefits from being able to successfully navigate the immigration system and ultimately become citizens here in the U.S. And then, there’s a whole host of those who are chilled. [unclear] health actually says that 26 million people will be chilled as a result of confusion and fear arising from these rule changes across the board. And I think what it’s going to do is ultimately impact the ability of those folks to thrive here, to show that they have essentially the requisite income that’s required, which is actually one of the totalities that’s a factor that I mentioned, to really show that they can take care of themselves and either remain here in the U.S. or integrate to join their families here in the U.S.

VALLAS: And it really does…. It strikes me as worth noting explicitly that, as we think about the Trump administration’s full force of immigration policies and particularly policies impacting low-income immigrant families, that there really is one policy adviser in the White House who actually is the architect of many of these policies. Which is why you see these kinds of similarities and this kind of through line of just tremendous dehumanization or lack of regard for the humanity of immigrants and immigrant families. And that person is, of course, Stephen Miller. And it is also worth noting that we’re actually starting to watch the Trump administration, heading into November, touting this public charge rule and its larger set of attacks on immigrant families as one of their signature policy achievements, heading into the November election. This is one of the things that they are really most bragging about, which maybe should not be surprising and actually is what many of us, frankly, somewhat expected from the likes of a President Trump when he did enter the White House in early 2017, given that, in a lot of ways, this rule really kind of sits at that perfect intersection for divide and conquer politics like this president has really taken to new heights. It’s almost perfectly in the middle of the Venn diagram where immigrants and safety net programs come together, which couldn’t be better red meat to this particular president’s base. So, just wanted to note that and offer you an opportunity to weigh in on some of the politics here.

CHOI: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the way in which the public charge rules have really been rolled out, I think, has been very intentional. Basically since early 2017, each news week, each policy development has essentially led to chilled community participation in these programs. So, it’s now cashed and non-cash and at the federal, state, and local level across the country. You know, despite all of our best efforts within the campaign to stem and assuage our communities’ fear arising from using these benefits programs that actually wouldn’t support our neighbors with their nutritional health and housing needs, it really hasn’t filtered. And so, what we found is, then what we’ve heard are actually really detailed accounts of the egregious effects that this will have had, where people are forgoing cancer treatments, moms are returning their breast pumps, parents are pulling their children out of school lunch programs because the public charge is essentially going to affect their path to green card and ultimate citizenship. I mean, this is a very intentional strategy that was used. And unfortunately, we are anticipating a potential rule coming from the Department of Justice, which is [unclear] portability grounds on public charge, and are once again, bracing for additional fear and chaos, that’s kind of rampant through our communities again.

VALLAS: And that study that you mentioned — just because I don’t want it to get lost in some of the facts and figures that are getting offered here — it comes from the Migration Policy Institute, MPI, who’s done a lot of the analytics throughout this public charge debate. They estimate, as you said, that the new rule could prompt some 23 million non-citizens and their U.S. citizen family members not to apply for, or to withdraw from, basic assistance programs like healthcare, like food assistance, like housing assistance. And I mention inherent in that statistic is a great many of citizen family members. That figure actually includes 4.7 million adults and 7.6 million children who are all citizens who are estimated to be likely to be impacted by this rule just because of those chilling effects that you were describing in addition to the actual changes in eligibility. So, how was this rule received when it was announced? There was a long period of kind of the comment window being open and lots of active and very public debate around this policy. It really did actually rise to the front pages of a lot of major news outlets in ways that a tax on low-income and particularly immigrant families often do not. And my understanding, if I’m remembering this correctly, is that the rule actually generated a new record number of comments filed, largely in opposition. Talk a little bit about some of the backlash to this rule and some of the public response.

CHOI: Sure. As I mentioned, we’ve been tracking this rule since early 2017 when there was a news leak, actually, two that emerged regarding Trump’s intent to sign four executive orders. One was public charge. It never got signed, but the others were. And this will sound very familiar: The Muslim ban, ending Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, and then protecting so-called American jobs by altering student and work visa programs and incentivizing a program called E-Verify. And so, all those programs have actually moved forward. All those initiatives have moved forward by the Trump administration. And really our focus has been to delay the impacts of the public charge writ large, given the wide impacts that are being [unclear] and have really started happening already.

So, we’ve been fighting to delay the implementation of the deregulation since then by using a combination of advocacy, mobilization, and communication efforts. And as you mentioned, the campaign really came together and now is about 450 organizations strong alongside several allies representing anti-poverty, civil rights, immigrant rights, anti-hunger, senior groups, etc. sectors across the board to really protest the changes. And as you mentioned, most notably, we had a successful mobilization to submit public comments to the then-proposed rule that was published in the Federal Register in October of 2018. And collectively, we were able to generate about 266,000+ comments from individuals and organizations really highlighting the harms that would be felt across communities across the country. And that was a record for the Department of Homeland Security. Since then, we have filed also several lawsuits across the country collectively to stop the rules from going into effect. And unfortunately, the Supreme Court lifted the last remaining nationwide injunctions that really stopped this rule from going into effect while this litigation is pending, and the rule went into effect on Monday the 24th.

VALLAS: So, that’s sort of the current status of the rule. Now, as you’re describing, the last injunction that was in place was lifted by the Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court, effectively deciding to let this rule move forward finally, after quite some time of it being battle in the courts, a lengthy comment process which you were describing, and oodles and oodles of media backlash as well. Where do things stand now? The rule is in effect. Talk a little bit about what folks should be watching in the coming weeks and months, and particularly with an eye towards who the families and children are that are likely to be affected and who should really be thinking about this in terms of their own personal potential risks.

CHOI: Sure. You know, so, the Supreme Court’s ruling allowed the rule to take effect on Monday, but it’s just for now. There is litigation that’s ongoing in the lower courts. And in the next few weeks and months, we anticipate forward movement on a number of different fronts. There’s about nine lawsuits just challenging the public charge rule alone that’s implemented here in the U.S. And I think when it comes to families that are going to be impacted, one of the things that we’ve been saying is it is really bifurcating what the impact of the rule was. So, when it comes to those that are directly affected, very few people who are subject to public charge actually qualify for the benefits programs that are covered by the regulations. That being said, this is how [unclear] that I mentioned is likely to harm many across the board. And really, I think our concerns are with this so-called chilling effect, right? What the broader population of folks and families and immigrant families that will be essentially chilled. And so, we’ve been working closely with our service provider partners as well as advocates, etc. to figure out how we can best serve our communities across the country.

VALLAS: Well, so, and talk a little bit about some of those efforts. You guys have all been, it’s a tremendous network that’s been built, really trying to fight this policy from taking effect. But it’s also now in the position, even though those lawsuits are still underway and could at some point prove successful on the merits, in which case, we could be having a very different conversation some number of months down the road. But as the rule actually is allowed to take effect, in the meantime, you and a number of other groups have come together to really think through how to educate people and how to make sure that families are aware of the benefits that they are eligible for, as well as how to avoid some of the potential risks that are very real as this rule takes effect.

CHOI: Sure. I mean, one of the things that we’ve just been emphasizing is that really, fear is Trump’s real weapon here and that facts are a family’s best defense. And so, we’ve really been focusing on our community education efforts. On Monday, we had a national teach-in where we encouraged our partners across the country to start talking about public charge and use it as a way to educate their community members, their allies, as well as local or state government entities and agencies that are going to ultimately have to triage the public charge tests and answer questions from immigrants and their families as they’re navigating both benefits and health systems as well as the immigration system.

I think for us, we’re looking at what can we do to fight this issue on several fronts? And so, definitely telling families, please get the facts and do the right thing for your family. We’re also looking to take the fight to Congress. There’s actually two bills that have been sponsored by Representative Judy Chu as well as Senator Mazie Hirono that looks to essentially defund efforts related to public charge. We are encouraging people to show up and vote and keep our elected officials who actually support regulation change and hold them accountable. And then specifically, we’re working with our state and local advocates to figure out how we can best get resources to service providers that are on the ground, that are helping immigrants and their families navigate the infinitely much more complex [unclear] based on these changes to public charge.

VALLAS: And is there also something that should be getting talked about on the campaign trail? We’ve got a bunch of Democrats running for president. We can’t get into the individual candidates on this show, but what could the next president — or you talked a little bit about those bills — but what could the next president do to roll this back, given that it was something that was not an act of legislation by the current president? And are we hearing enough from Democratic candidates on the trail when it comes to public charge as an important priority for the next president to undo?

CHOI: I mean, I think what’s going to be important for our next president is really to look holistically at the changes in institutions, right, as a well test across the board, not just within our immigration system, but also it’s our health and benefits systems. And I think that there are. I would challenge them to really look at how we can better make immigrants’ and their families’ lives here in terms of their ability to thrive. We just need to get rid of the public charge tests all together, you know, given its sort of history in the U.S. And so, I would highly encourage whatever the new administration is, to really look at changes that would roll back, not just, but also eliminate the public charge tests all together.

VALLAS: So, in the last couple of minutes that I have with you, Connie, I often like to sort of transport myself into the world I wish we were living in and have that conversation instead. In a lot of ways, the conversation I know I wish I were having on these issues, I suspect you wish we were having was not just ongoing debate after debate after debate about whether or not to strip basic assistance away from struggling families, and particularly not in such a racialized and kind of divide and conquer way as is normally the tone when it comes to these debates, when they have to do specifically with immigrant eligibility. But the debate that I wish we were having was around how to — and I’m far from alone in this — how to think about our social insurance system, our public assistance structure, all of which is incredibly inadequate in many ways, but in a way that could start to view immigrants as contributors, the contributors that they are, in many cases, paying taxes into these programs and then yet not actually being eligible for them. But also in a way that starts to understand and appreciate the types of assistance that we’re talking about, whether it’s income assistance, whether it’s in-kind assistance, like healthcare, like housing, and like food, the most basic types of things. And the role that those types of investments can play in in bringing about long-term benefits for families, that in some cases, are immigrant families, in some cases are mixed status families, but many of whom are really just trying to make a better life here. Would love to sort of hear you close on that note and the conversation that you wish we were having when it comes to the case for immigrant eligibility for basic assistance.

CHOI: I mean, Rebecca, I would say that’s exactly the public conversation that I wish that we were having. I think there is a stigma that’s attached to benefits usage writ large within the country and a real misunderstanding when it comes to the long-term positive benefits of actually accessing these basic needs program that it has on, not just the individuals and families that access those programs, but our overall ability for our communities to thrive here. And so, I’m really hoping for a day when we can have a holistic, workable system that actually really recognizes the contributions that immigrants bring to the table and really, you know, sets us all up for success in the future.

VALLAS: I’ve been speaking with Connie Choi. She’s a field manager and strategist at the National Immigration Law Center, better known as NILC. They co-chair the Protecting Immigrant Families Campaign with the Center for Law and Social Policy, or CLASP. Connie, thanks so much for taking the time to join the show. Where can folks learn more about the Protecting Immigrant Families Campaign and get involved as it enters this next phase of simultaneous education, but continuing to monitor and fight in the courts and arming families with the facts?

CHOI: Sure. You can go to our website at www.ProtectingImmigrantFamilies.org. And please sign up for our listserv. And if you actually want to join this fight with us, we have several working groups working across various strategies to really fight back against this rule.

VALLAS: Thanks again, Connie.

CHOI: Thank you.

VALLAS: And that does it for this week’s episode of Off-Kilter, powered by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. I’m your host Rebecca Vallas. The show is produced by Will Urquhart and Allison Young, and our transcripts are courtesy of Cheryl Green. Find us on Facebook and Twitter @OffKilterShow, and you can find us on the airwaves on the Progressive Voices Network and the We Act Radio Network or anytime as a podcast on iTunes. See you next week.

♪ I want freedom (freedom)

Freedom (freedom)

Now, I don’t know where it’s at

But it’s calling me back

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What we talkin’ bout …. ♪