Manufacturing jobs, and especially unionized manufacturing jobs, were an important route into the middle class for African American families in the half century following World War II. This is no longer the case today, as manufacturing has shrunk and the share of the workforce represented by unions has declined. The decline in union representation was especially steep in manufacturing, which now has a slightly lower union representation rate than the economy as a whole. Union jobs in manufacturing now account for just 1 percent of total employment.

These trends have hit African American workers especially hard. African American workers were 50 percent more likely to be represented by a union than whites 25 years ago. Today, they are only 30 percent more likely. And African Americans are actually slightly less likely to be employed in manufacturing today than whites.

The bottom line here is that an important source of entry to the middle class for African Americans is being closed off.

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The bankers are on the offensive again, demanding hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars to protect them against their massive losses on bad mortgages. They have hostages this time. They claim that millions of low and moderate income homeowners will lose their homes if we don’t meet their demand.

Unfortunately, it seems that many in Congress may be willing to surrender to their demands, including some members who are usually considered liberals. This is unfortunate not only because these bailout schemes hand taxpayer dollars to some of the very richest people, but because the plans will actually do very little to benefit most homeowners. Furthermore, the government money that goes to bankers is money that will not be used to pay for child care or children’s health care.

Let’s looks at the numbers and see how the deal works.

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