Earl Ofari Hutchinson is the author of the book The Mugging of Black America and a correspondent for the US Guardian newspaper. He spoke to Green Left Weekly by telephone about the underlying conditions that led to the explosion triggered in Los Angeles.
Ofari Hutchinson explained that the Bush administration has continued the policies of Reagan, targeting welfare for severe budget cutbacks.
"Welfare cuts in the United States have been very profound in the last decade, and it has accelerated in the last two or three years. The figure over the last few years has been roughly 10%-15% in cuts", he said.
"We also have a continuation of the welfare cutting/slashing policies of the Reagan-Bush administrations epitomised by the state government in California.
"There is a ballot initiative in California to cut welfare by 25%.
"In the county of Los Angeles, there is a proposal which will allow the county board of supervisors to eliminate general relief.
"General relief is the only form of public assistance that is available to single men who qualify for no other form of government aid. The estimate is that over 77,000 single men in Los Angeles county will be affected."
The most common welfare payment in the US is called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).
"AFDC is almost exclusively targeted for single mothers, so there are no time limits. One of the things that has happened not only in California but nationally is the major push to bop single mothers with children off welfare if they do not qualify or if they do not go into a job training program.
"The trend is that welfare payments end with the accessibility or willingness of single mothers and other recipients of welfare payments to immediately go on job training."
No jobs
Unemployment is escalating. Job growth for the rest of the '90s is predicted to be the lowest in four decades.
"The figures don't really tell the story. The last figure I saw was for the month of April: the official, and I have to emphasise official, figure is about 8.5%", said Ofari Hutchinson.
"The unemployment figures don't measure the true scope of unemployment because many people are left out. For example, they don't count what they call discouraged workers — people who are classified as not actively looking for a job.
"If you're a part-time worker, which could mean simply that you work one hour a week — and it doesn't make any difference what kind of work — you're not counted either. If you include discouraged workers, part-time workers, then you can see the magnitude is even greater than the official figures."
Ofari Hutchinson points out that unemployment for non-Anglo communities is far higher than the average. "The unemployment rate for African-Americans is always — no matter what season, no matter what year — double what the general unemployment figure is."
The combination of growing unemployment and welfare cuts has pushed more Americans into poverty.
"Based on the census made in 1990, and some of those figures are still being compiled and tabulated, the poverty rate overall seems to be about one person in 10", says Ofari Hutchinson.
"Again we have to fine tune that a little bit more if you are talking about African-Americans. For African-Americans the poverty rate hovers around one-third. The latest figure I have seen is 33.8% of African-Americans are officially living below the poverty rate. One out of two African-American children now live in homes that are considered below the poverty line.
"Hispanics' and Latinos' poverty rate is not quite as high as African-Americans, but their general rate is somewhere in the 25-26% range."
Wages
Having a job in the US does not guarantee an escape from poverty. The weakening of unions has left workers defenceless against attacks on their conditions and wages.
"Unionisation is now at its all time lowest; 12-15% of the organised work force are officially in labour unions.
"The implications of that are profound. First of all, if you don't have a union, the wage structure is going to be very low. You do not have a structure that is going to fight for better
conditions for higher wages and some kind of input to decision making in management", explained Ofari Hutchinson.
"We've just seen General Motors announce the closure of 21 plants nationwide, and that is going to impact greatly on the level of unionisation in the US because the United Auto Workers is still one of the best organised and strongest unions.
"The other part of that is the changed nature of the US economy. Up to a decade ago, the major components of US industry were primarily manufacturing and heavy industry — iron, steel, automobiles, plastics, chemicals. In the last few years we've seen a tremendous decline in the capacity of those kinds of industries to produce jobs.
"It means that an individual who once worked at an auto factory or a steel factory, good union jobs that made $12-$13 per hour, is now probably working in a shoe store or a fast food stand, a non-unionised job. S/he has traded that $12-$13 an hour unionised job of the past for a $5-6 per hour job which is unprotected, with no union benefits.
"There has been an erosion overall in consumer purchasing power, an erosion overall in the wage standard and as a result of that an erosion in living standards."
Employers in the US are also exploiting "undocumented workers" who come from other countries illegally.
"Many of them are coming into the US not only because of the depressed economic conditions in their country but also because of warfare, especially in Central America.
"They typically work in the lowest skilled or unskilled positions, the dirtiest, grimiest, lowest paid, worst conditioned jobs.
"It has had another kind of effect on young people. Young African-Americans in particular might have worked at those kinds of positions at one time, but they are just not there any more. Those are positions that have become 'reserved for the undocumented'."
Surviving
The "safety net" has come to pieces, says Ofari Hutchinson. People's options to ensure their survival have been limited.
"Many, many people, especially young people, are not able to maintain a sufficient income to meet their necessities, so what many of them are doing is taking to the streets. They are
involved in crime, in drug dealing, in burglaries, robberies and all kinds of illegal activities to get money", he explained.
"People have actually found other ways to 'survive', but you have to be careful with that term because survival certainly does not mean being able to live in a decent apartment, certainly not buy a house, a decent car. It's just basically living very close to the margins."
Not everyone survives.
"If we go by the increased death figures, many African-Americans and other people of colour are just simply expiring. They do not have the money for medical treatment, doctor's calls, medicines etc. As a result of that, the health problem in the US, certainly among people of colour, is astronomical. The death rate is about two or three times that of the white population."
Vanishing education
"It has often been said that the education system in the US rivals that of some Third World countries" because of cutbacks, says Ofari Hutchinson.
"The quality is poor. It is a starved system. The money is not there; the resources are not being applied.
"In the state of California, the janitorial maintenance staff are being cut.
"Education is in full throttle decline in the US. This is one of the reasons why the Japanese and the Europeans — in fact just about all of the other developed nations in the world — have educational systems light years ahead of the education system at the basic level in the US.
"This is why, technologically, the US is falling further and further behind — simply because they do not have a properly trained and properly educated work force.
"It is not the fault of the people; it is the fault of continuing to refuse to support a system of education that will provide information, learning and advancement both socially and economically", he said.
George Bush has blamed the urban upheaval in Los Angeles and poverty in the US on "the failed liberal solutions of the 60s".
"I think that if anybody looks at [Bush's statement] closely, the conclusion is that the US is in for greater turmoil, is
in for greater upheaval in the future", says Ofari Hutchinson.
"That kind of mentality, that kind of political approach — refusing to address the real problems and needs of the people, dodging those issues in the pursuit of scapegoats — is a guaranteed prescription for continued turmoil."