D.C. Slow To Reduce Its Ranks Of Jobless: Boom Eludes Many Poor Neighborhoods
There are signs that the problem goes well beyond employers discriminating against the overwhelmingly black residents of some D.C. neighborhoods. Nationally, blacks have a higher rate of joblessness than people of other races, 12 percent in July compared with 5.7 percent across the nation as a whole. Experts attribute some of that to racism. But many overwhelmingly African American neighborhoods in the District have unemployment rates many times that for blacks nationwide. The more substantial problem, Simpkins and others who work with the unemployed said, is an entrenched culture in a few District neighborhoods that has changed little in recent years. Children grow up with friends, family and neighbors who don't work, and thus they never learn how to apply for a job or plot a career. They attend troubled public schools where they do not learn the basics. And by the time they are adults, the routine of waking up early and showing up at a job is foreign to them. More of the District's jobs are going to people who live outside the city, according to the 2000 Census. In 1990, 67.6 percent of District jobs were held by residents of the suburbs; by 2000, 71.6 percent were. [more 
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