A new book from the Urban Institute Press presents national experts' analysis of how and why the economic boom of the 1990s eluded young black.... A new book from the Urban Institute Press presents national experts' analysis of how and why the economic boom of the 1990s eluded young black men and suggests policies to improve their economic and social circumstances.

Black Males Left Behind, the eleven-chapter volume edited by Ronald B. Mincy of Columbia University, rivets much-needed attention on a population bypassed by much of the last decade's economic successes and welfare overhaul.

During the 1990s, the employment rate of 16- to 24-year-old black men with a high school education or less fell from its peak during the 1980s economic expansion. In addition, their labor force participation continued the decline of the 1980s, sliding from 1.03 million in 1979 to 898,000 in 2001 and coinciding with rapid growth in the number who were incarcerated or on parole or probation.