BrianGarst.com

Chronic poverty, broken families, unemployment, low graduation rates, and high crime rates plague minority groups, particularly in urban areas. These problems are certainly not unique to minorities, but they are particularly acute enough to have drawn special attention from the political class. But worry not, as some rich do-gooders have come to save the day! They’re going to throw money at the problems:

New York mayor Michael Bloomberg Thursday unveiled a $127.5 million campaign to help black and Hispanic youths who suffer from staggeringly high unemployment, crime and poverty rates.

The Young Men’s Initiative aims to bring in policy reforms to “connect young men to educational, employment and mentoring opportunities across more than a dozen agencies,” a statement from New York’s City Hall said.

The three-year program will be funded jointly by private and public dollars.

Billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundation pledged $30 million, while the Bloomberg Philanthropies also donated $30 million with the remaining $67.5 million to come from city funds.

…According to a recent report commissioned by the city, the poverty rate among young blacks and Latino men ages 18-14 in New York City’s five boroughs is 50 percent higher than among their white and Asian peers.

Unemployment rates among the group were 60 percent higher and more than 90 percent of young murder victims and perpetrators are black and Latino, it said.

…Specific initiatives within the program include $24 million that will be invested over three years to focus on college and career readiness among minorities.

There will also be initiatives to restructure in-jail services for inmates to prepare them for release, and more than $9 million will on expanding an internship program to help training for in-demand positions such as paramedics.

“This is a crisis that demands a crisis response,” said New York Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs. “Expressly naming the problem of disparities and aggressively fighting barriers is how we are going to begin to achieve change.”

The benefits of this effort will be marginal, at best. They may well help some folks, but it sounds like the last thing they are likely to do is actually address the “barriers” at issue here. Those barriers are, after all, primarily of government construction.

Want to help improve the high minority youth unemployment rate? Get rid of minimum wage laws that price low-skilled labor out of the market, denying young people of all colors, but particularly those of poorer, less educated backgrounds, from learning the skills and work habits they need to advance.

Want to improve education among minorities? End the government school monopoly which traps the poor in failing schools, penalizing them compared to the wealthy who can afford to escape failing government schools for private alternatives.

These are things that can be done to actually help people. But they’re politically difficult and require real leadership. It’s easier for those who really just want publicity to throw some money at the problem. It’s almost like they’re more concerned about looking like they’re solving problems than actually solving them.

minimum wage race issues