Black Community at Reagan-Era Jobless Rate, White Jobless Rate Goes Down
What Will the President Say in His Speech This Week?
By Hazel Trice Edney
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – It’s a pivotal moment for the Obama White House. The Black unemployment rate is now at its highest in almost 30 years. All eyes are on the President as he gives what some view as the most important economic speech of his nearly three-year tenure this week.
“The Republican field is still extremely weak. And the Republicans are not offering anything as an alternative,” says David Bositis, spokesman for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
Bositis, considered a foremost expert on Black politics, indicated that Obama’s re-election is at stake. “It depends on whether the jobless numbers get better or get worse. Even if they get worse, the Republicans are still not offering anything as an alternative,” he said.
Just before the official start of the election season on Labor Day came revelations of the worst Black unemployment numbers since the Reagan Administration in July 1984.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the Black jobless rate for August at 16.7 percent, a number dating back to 1984. The rate leaped an entire percentage point, from 15.9 percent in July. Ironically, the White unemployment rate dropped slightly, from 8.1 percent to 8.0 percent. The average rate remained steady at 9.1 percent.
This week, President Obama is slated to unveil a plan to create jobs. His prime time speech Thursday night is viewed as a key to his re-election bid as his primary voting base – African-Americans – have become frustrated with their economic plight.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have been among those expressing their frustration. They became increasingly outspoken on the issue after holding job fairs in major cities this summer and seeing thousands of African-Americans line up.
"August's unemployment numbers show that there is a significant hemorrhage in the African-American community that is not being addressed, which has resulted in extremely high jobs loss,” CBC Chairman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said in a statement responding to the new unemployment rates. “We stand at a critical point in our nation’s history. The time for bold action on jobs is now to provide hard working Americans with real economic opportunities. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus will offer suggestions to President Obama before his address to the nation on jobs. It is time to take serious and the Congressional Black Caucus is prepared to continue the work we began with the initiative. We look forward to working with the President and Congress to ensure the urgent needs of our communities are met.”
CBC members, who also blame Republican leadership for dragging their feet on jobs, have co-sponsored and introduced what they call the “For the People Jobs Initiative” - H. Res. 348. The measure urges the House “to immediately consider and pass critical jobs legislation to address the growing economic crisis in America.” Cleaver said. He said the CBC has introduced more than 40 job creation bills since the beginning of the 112th Congress.
President Obama, early in his tenure, also focused on jobs. The $800 billion bailout was supposed to have stimulated job growth. Whereas it seemed to have slowed the bleeding of jobs, it apparently did little to increase employment prospects for African-Americans.
Also, while President Obama has made two major speeches over the past month in which he focused specifically on the disparate unemployment rate for veterans and their difficulty in finding jobs, during his first two years, he has not specifically addressed the disparate economic suffering of African-Americans.
“A rising tides lifts all boats,” he said in a Jan. 2010 White House press conference in response to a question about the spiraling Black jobless rate.
This week on Labor Day, President Obama was slated to have visited Detroit, which has the highest Black population in the nation at 82 percent. There he was to deliver remarks to workers and their families at a Labor Day event, focusing on his efforts to create jobs and strengthen the economy.
There, he would be hard-pressed to avoid speaking directly to the disparate Black unemployment statistics. African-Americans, his most solid support base, were hopeful. Detroit Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) was a co-sponsor of one of the introduced CBC bills, the “Urban Jobs Act.”
Though it is as much the responsibility of Congress to create jobs and avoid economically disparate hardships as it is the job of the White House, eyes are on Obama because he is the nation’s first Black President and because, as a part of his platform, he promised not to forget the disparate hardships of Black people.
The following are Obama’s Nov. 3, 2008 election-eve words, documented by this reporter as then editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Service, who listened on his telephone conference with Black leaders:
“Everyone under the sound of my voice understands the struggles we face. Everyone understands the fierce urgency of now. You all know what’s at stake in this election,” Obama said in a live telephone conference with Black leaders on the eve of his election. The “listen only” call included a spectrum of speakers, including civil rights icon Rev. Joseph Lowery, Oprah Winfrey, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, and Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn.
"Obama listed a string of issues disparately faced by African-Americans, including the struggle to recruit good teachers and, the struggle against under-funded schools, double digit jobless rates and having to work two and three jobs to make ends meet.
“I mention these issues because this community, our community, the African-American community, during these challenging times, suffers more than most in this country,” he said. “Double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, stagnant wages, our kids are more likely to drop out, more likely to be in jail, more likely to die. We’re going to have to do better. And if we continue the momentum we’ve seen across this country over the last several weeks, we can do better.”