Quality of Life after Deindustrialization

In the 1970s and 1980s a heavy deindustrialization took place in many northern cities and Milwaukee was no exception. Black workers dropped from their peak of 25% in 1980 to just 10% in 1990 of workers in industry along with an increasing poverty rate in many northern former industrial cities. Detroit experienced the highest increase in poverty rate, as the number jumped up to 33% after deindustrialization. Black family income dropped too and between the decades 1980 and 1990 the number had dropped by 15% in cities such as Pittsburgh and Detroit. With deindustrialization came the rise of low-wage retail work taking its place and the once numerous industrial unions changed. By century’s end poor black working-class women formed the Atlanta National Domestic Workers Union of America, Cleveland Domestic workers of America and more.

Source: Workers On Arrival, Black Labor in the Making of America, Joe William Trotter