Dec. 20, 2013

Improved Economy? The Feds Think So
By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - There are two ways to end a recession.  One is to increase federal spending on the theory that people will spend more money when they have more money. 

Obviously this Congress doesn’t care about economic stimulation.  They’ve cut budgets, not raised them.  They failed to pass the jobs bill that President Obama proposed a year or so ago.  They’ve cut the food stamps program.  They closed the government down, causing millions economic hardship and caused others to carefully hold onto their funds, saving as opposed to spending.  One might say that the Congressional failure to stimulate the economy has contributed to the length of the recession.

The Federal Reserve Bank has picked up some of the slack, buying $85 billion of bonds each month to put money into the economy.  Some economists do not agree with the Fed’s action because it has artificially kept inflation down.  Without the bond purchases, they argue, inflation would rise, and reflect the true value of goods and services.  Without increased inflation, some businesses are holding onto cash instead of investing it, and others are adversely impacted.

Now, on reports that the economy is improving, the Fed says it will “taper” off their stimulus.  Their tapering will not be a major shock to the economy.  Instead of buying $85 billion of bonds each month, they’ll buy $10 billion less, or $75 billion.  Why?  They say a robust jobs report this month, with the unemployment rate at its lowest level in ten years  – seven percent – suggests the job market is on the mend.  Economic growth is higher, too, at 2.8 percent.

The Fed fails to consider the fact that the unemployment rate looks better because of the number of people who have dropped out of the labor market.   If those people continued to look for work, the rate might be as high as it was last month.  Furthermore, when you look at alternative measures of unemployment, the overall rate is 13.2 percent, the same as it was last month.  The alternative report says that Black unemployment is 12.5 percent, but if it is extrapolated, that rate is 24 percent, or one in four African-Americans.  Some find this a low estimate based on their experiences with the African-American population, especially those with lower-paying occupations.  In any case, the unemployment rate for African =-Americans is entirely too high, and “economic recovery” has not trickled down.

What does Federal Reserve tapering mean to you?  If you are in the stock market (African-Americans 35 percent less likely than Whites to be in the stock market) you realized record gains next are far more likely to see the value of your portfolio rise in the short run.  On the other hand, stock values are likely to correct (maybe fall) in the first quarter of 2014.  Rising interest rates will also mean (in a year or so) that you’re the value of CDs and other interest-dependent investments will slowly increase in value (now you are getting between one and one and a half percent.  On the other hand, as interest rates rise, the value of bonds will drop.

What about unemployment?  If those holding dollars invest them, unemployment will drop slowly.  We still have excess unemployment – the unemployment rate was about 5 percent at the beginning of the recession.  We lost nearly a million jobs a month at the beginning of the recession, and in the past several months, we have gained about 300,000 jobs a month.  It may take until 2015 to return to the level of employment from 2008 or early 2009.

In addition, in some occupations the level of technological change has been rapid, and machines are doing the work that people once did.  Furthermore because of the recession, some employers have found that they can make do with fewer employees.  For example, we have seen drops in clerical employment as managers use computers more.  In some offices as few as one or two employees do the work that half a dozen did just three years ago.

While investors are applauding the Fed move, workers should be wary of the “tapering” that will pull $10 billion a month from the economy.  African American workers, especially, will be hit harder than others by these changes.  Improved economy?  For who?

Dec. 16, 2013

President Obama: ‘Help Our Less Fortunate’ at Christmas
By Hazel Trice Edney 

President Barack Obama meets with National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling in the Oval Office early this month. PHOTO: Pete Souza/The White House

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - With a bi-partisan budget agreement established with no continuation of unemployment benefits, President Obama has appealed for Americans to “Help Our Less Fortunate” at Christmas.

“Every year, we mark the holiday season with celebrations and good cheer.  And I should remind my girls that I like getting Christmas presents as much as anybody. But this is also a time to remember the story of a child born to two faithful travelers on a holy night, long ago,” said the President in a rare moment of public reflection from a Christian perspective. “The sacred birth of Jesus Christ was God’s gift to man on Earth.  And, through His example, He taught us that we should love the Lord, love our neighbors, as we love ourselves.  It’s a teaching that has endured for generations.  And today, it lies at the heart of my faith and that of millions of Americans, and billions around the globe.”

With a gradually improving economy, a bi-partisan budget agreement that will avoid another government shutdown, and a Congress about to recess for Christmas, Obama made note of the economic disparities that remain.

“No matter who we are, or where we come from, or how we worship, it’s a message of hope and devotion that can unite all of us this holiday season,” he said.  “It compels all of us to reach out and help our less fortunate citizens - our poor, our sick, our neighbors in need - and to serve those who sacrifice so much on our behalf.”

The President’s words of compassion were spoken between the music and festivities of the 32nd “Christmas in Washington” Broadcast held at the National Building Museum in Washington Dec. 15. This year’s event benefitted the Children’s National Medical Center.

With what appears to be a repaired Affordable Care Act website bringing a degree of justice and parity to health care in America, the President must now focus on his annual State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress Jan. 28. With three more years in office, Obama is expected to speak strongly on strengthening the economy – specifically healing economic inequities.

Meanwhile, in establishing a bi-partisan budget deal, Congress cut off extended unemployment benefits to 1.3 million Americans.Those benefits will end just after Christmas, causing great hardships to many.

“While the budget agreement is a slight improvement over current law because it provides temporary relief from across-the-board, automatic spending cuts known as sequestration, it shortchanges federal employees and turn its back on millions of unemployed Americans,” said Congressional Black Caucus Chair Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) in a statement.

She refused to vote for the budget bill, noting “Unless reauthorized, unemployment benefits to 1.3 million Americans … will end on December 28th. This cutoff will affect more than 3 million Americans over the next six months.”

With 1.3 million fewer jobs than in 2008 when the recession began, Fudge pointed out that “Unemployment benefits play a critical role in helping Americans get back on their feet and strengthening our economy.  In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has found that unemployment benefits are one of the most effective fiscal policies to increase economic growth and employment. Nevertheless, Republican members of Congress argued that continuing to extend the benefits hurts the deficit. President Obama had also appealed for the extension of the unemployment benefits as well as a hike in minimum wage, but - so far - to no avail.

Giving hope for 2014, the conversation about poverty in America appears to be increasing despite little talk of new policies to deal with it. Upon the 50^th anniversary celebration of the March on Washington, Martin Luther King III – in the presence of President Obama – pointed out that the economic gap between Blacks and Whites had remained consistent for the past five decades. That included the unemployment rate which, in 1963, was 5 percent for Whites and 10.9 percent for Blacks. In August it was 6.6 percent for whites and 12.6 percent for blacks, about the same 6 percentage points apart.

Civil rights leaders have been consistent in their outcries on behalf of the poor.

“Many of those excluded are found waiting in America. They wait while some in Congress would cut $8 billion from food stamps, or cut off benefits for more than a million long-term unemployed citizens,” wrote National Urban League President/CEO Marc Morial in a recent column. “They wait while the President’s proposal and the economic wisdom of a raise in the minimum wage continue to languish on Capitol Hill.  They wait while working jobs for wages too low to support the basic needs of their families.  They wait while some in Congress continue to resist transportation and infrastructure funding and the good paying jobs that would result.”

Concluding his column, Morial quoted the late Nelson Mandela who was laid to rest on Sunday: “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice.  Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural.  It is manmade and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.  Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great.  You can be that great generation.  Let your greatness blossom.”

Dec. 20, 2013

Stereotypes Still Limit Black Women from Serving on Juries!
By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The United States Supreme Court once observed, “The harm from discriminatory jury selection extends beyond that inflicted on the defendant and the excluded juror to touch the entire community.” 

That is why the National Congress of Black Women recently filed an amicus—friend of the court—brief urging the Court to hear a case in which African-American women were excluded from a capital murder trial because of stereotypes about them.  At its January 10, 2014 conference, the Court will decide whether to hear the case—George Brett Williams v. State of California.

In 1991, six Black women entered Compton’s courthouse ready to serve on George Brett Williams’ jury. Each stated that she was willing and able to sit in judgment of Williams, who is a Black man, and to vote for the death penalty if warranted. However, the prosecutor did not believe the women.  He struck the first five, offering identical reasons for each strike—reasons that had little to do with the women’s answers, but instead with their “demeanor” and the prosecutor’s “general impression” “in spite of what they said.”  Later, the prosecutor explained that he kept the sixth Black woman because “I wanted a greater mix of racial diversification on this jury.”

Mr. Williams’ attorney objected to the strikes under Batson v. Kentucky, which established a test for determining whether a peremptory challenge of a prospective juror is racially biased.  (Later, in J.E.B. v. Alabama, the Court extended Batson to gender discrimination.) The defense attorney asked if the strike pattern was mere “coincidence.”  “No,” replied the judge.  “I have to say in my other death penalty cases I have found that the black women are very reluctant to impose the death penalty; they find it very difficult no matter what it is. I have found it to be true.”

The judge didn’t explain why she denied the final two Batson motions. She said that she could “only go by” the prosecutor’s assertions because she had no recollection of either prospective juror.  Then, the prosecutor asked the remaining jurors if it would “cause anybody any concern” that he was repeatedly going up to the bench after “I kick a female black.”  Ultimately, Mr. Williams was convicted and sentenced to death.

The specific questions raised by Mr. Williams’ petition to the Court concern how a reviewing court should apply Batson where the trial court fails to state its reasons for denying a Batson objection.

The case presents a question vital to African-American women, who, on account of stereotypes about their race and gender, continue to be the targets of discriminatory jury selection. The same stereotypes about race and gender that were used to entirely exclude African Americans and women from juries earlier in our nation’s history worked in concert to deny five African-American women the opportunity to serve as jurors here. These stereotypes include the assumption that a Black woman will be partial to a Black defendant on account of their shared race, as well as the assumption that a Black woman’s maternal instinct will cause her to irrationally identify with a Black defendant.

Our amicus brief, filed with the Black Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles, Inc., reminds the Court that jury service is a fundamental right of citizenship.  When a qualified juror is excluded based on group stereotypes, rather than on individual characteristics, the repercussions are far reaching.

Berkeley Law’s Death Penalty Clinic represents the National Congress of Black Women on this case.  Counsel of record is the clinic’s director, Elisabeth Semel.  Two of her clinic students, Celia de Pentheny O’Kelly and Jesús Mosqueda, drafted the brief under Professor Semel’s supervision.  NCBW has a special interest in this case because it protects our rights.

(Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq. is National Chair of the National Congress of Black Women. 202/678-6788.  www.nationalcongressbw.org)