June 9, 2013

Obama Must See Africa in New Light
By Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.

June 9, 2013

Understanding the Need for Full Employment
By William Spriggs

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The Social Security Trust Fund report has been released. One of its more telling charts was of the trend in Social Security revenue. Social Security revenue comes from a tax on the wages of earners, paid by both employees and employers. So, essentially it tracks the level of employment.

Based on the simple trend of revenues from 1990 to 2007, just before the Great Recession started, 2012 revenue would have been $899.4 billion; instead, it was $840 billion. That gap means less money to build up the Social Security Trust Fund than expected. The trustees do not break down the revenue by the age of workers, but based on the dramatically lower employment experience of young workers, the bulk of that gap reflects the lost wages of young people.

That gap also represents another side to the young worker crisis. Of course, a smaller Social Security Trust Fund is a crisis for all of us. But, the gap in earnings of young people also reflects they are not building up the wage record on which their Social Security benefits will be based.

This is tangible, easy to see costs of high unemployment for young people. Unfortunately, it is money they will not make up easily. Evidence is that entering the labor market in times of high unemployment permanently lowers the earnings of workers. The downturn of the 1980s left permanent scars on the earnings of those who graduated into the labor market between 1981 and 1983. The only way for the current young workers to make up those lost earnings will be to work longer-make it up at the ends of their working lives.

But, if America would return to getting to full employment faster, young workers would benefit greatly. And, Social Security would benefit. This is the true inter-generational struggle. The current generation of politicians is ignoring the immediate and long-term needs of young workers.

Now, the perverse twist is that the debate is on cutting the Social Security benefits of future retirees-meaning the current set of young workers who are suffering the most from high unemployment. The same set of young people who are not building up the savings needed to help them when they are old.

Here, the Social Security Trust Fund report is helpful. The report says that Social Security is currently taking in more money than it is paying out-revenue from current taxes and interest on the Trust Fund are more than current outlays to pay benefits. So, the Trust fund is continuing to grow. The Trust Fund is large enough to pay all promised benefits until 2033. That means well past when the first wave of the Baby Boomers-those born before 1949-will be finished receiving benefits-more crudely, when they are dead.

This means the current jargon on intergenerational transfer is a false debate; making it appear the AARP is trying to squeeze money out of young workers. Instead, those who are fighting to protect Social Security-like the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare-are really fighting for today's young workers. Protecting Social Security is making sure that young workers do not have to pay for the nearsightedness of austerity budgets that cheat the young out of policy debates on generating jobs, and then make young workers pay in retirement because of that same world view.

What the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development clearly showed last week in its economic report is that the social safety nets of the modern states are working to save the day. Why would we deny young workers a fully functioning set of proven safety nets when they get to be old?

In the meantime, let's move on to debating getting Americans to work. Politicians need to show how their plan creates jobs now, not in some distant future. Young people need the jobs, and all of us need Social Security.

William Spriggs serves as Chief Economist to the AFL-CIO and is a professor in, and former chair of the Department of Economics at Howard University.  Bill is also former assistant secretary for the Office of Policy at the United States Department of Labor.

June 9, 2013

Blackonomics

Black Economic Empowerment – Revolution or Evolution?  
By James Clingman

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - You would think that since the end of slavery and through the ensuing years Black people in this country would be further along in our economic evolution than we are today.  You would think there would be no need for the economic empowerment messages that other columnists and I write on a regular basis.  You would think Black children of the 21^st century would be sitting pretty right about now, considering all we have been taught and all we have been through in our economic struggle since we were fired – I mean freed.

As I read the powerful words of our ancestors, both men and women, I hear the very same messages coming from them over 100 years ago.  I hear them saying to our people who lived during that time, “Let’s build our own businesses,”  “Seek for ourselves,”  “Save our money and work together.”  “Be producers.” It goes on and on.

The question that arises is:  Why haven’t we heeded the messages of our ancestors?  We are still trying to implement some of the economic principles they lived by many years ago.  They had far fewer resources than we have today; they were quite limited when it came to transportation, communication, and education.  Yet they developed and followed principles that if practiced today would propel us toward the reality of true freedom.

A collective effort that should have been a natural evolution from generation to generation, among Black people, has now become a much-needed revolution.  Don’t get me wrong.  Revolution is all right, but our economic destiny should not be in such bad shape that it now takes a revolution to correct it.  Our economic demise is the direct result of a lack of evolution.  If we had followed the natural path of economic growth for Black people in this country, from the early 1900’s until today, we would have evolved into one of the most powerful groups in the entire world.  All we have instead is the dubious recognition of having an annual income that, if we were a country, would make us the tenth largest country in the world.

Revolution or evolution?  We always seem to gravitate toward revolution – and, admittedly, in most cases it has been very necessary.  But as far as economic empowerment is concerned, we now need a revolution simply because we failed to have an evolution.

There was a time, Dr. John Sibley Butler’s “Economic Detour” premise notwithstanding, when Black businesses flourished, even without access to the general market.  The National Negro Business League, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, and other Black business organizations helped create not only new entrepreneurs, they also stimulated a Black business psyche that encouraged our people to support one another, to do for ourselves, and to work for economic self-sufficiency.  We were producers and landowners; we developed our expertise in all fields of endeavor; we created jobs for ourselves; and we circulated our dollars among our own people.

I hear so much talk about an “economic revolution” for Black people.  Unfortunately, “revolution” in this case deals more with “revolving” than it does with “revolt.”  It simply means that we are getting back to a point where we were before, as in a circle.  Are we running in circles when it comes to economic empowerment?  I truly hope not.  Economic revolution must be conceived and grounded in “overturning” our situation, not “returning” to it.

Black business is not a revolutionary idea; it is an evolutionary construct that moves from an infancy stage through various growth periods and cycles, and eventually becomes a Johnson Publishing Company and a Motown.  Evolution would have moved us from the models we saw in Durham, North Carolina, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and other cities, to a $1 trillion business segment rather than the current $150 billion segment we have today.

Revolution or evolution?  When we walked away from our brothers’ and sisters’ businesses after we “won” integration, the proper evolution of our businesses was thwarted.  Now we are faced with starting an economic revolution.  We must now move to a place where some of us do not want to be, despite the fact that we were all there once before.   We already had what we are now trying to win back.  Evolution would have maintained what we had, but now it will take revolutionary thinking and revolutionary action to cause us to work together for true economic and psychological freedom.

Revolution or evolution?  We can have both.  We should have both.  Strong Black owned businesses still exist in this country, despite the buyouts we have witnessed in recent years.  Evolution is paramount to their existence.  Revolution is necessary for those of us who are consumers, small business owners, and advocates.  We must change the way we do business.  Specifically, we must change the way we spend our money.  If we have revolution and evolution, Black people will make the progress we need to gain a much higher level of economic empowerment.

June 9, 2013

Does Big Brother Have a Racial Bias?
By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - When George Orwell wrote the novel 1984, he envisioned a character, a real or imagined “Big Brother” who was a know-all, see-all, omnipotent and elusive presence that intruded into lives because he could.  Those who knew about “him” were told that they did not exist, but in many ways, Big Brother may not have existed either. The omnipotence had taken on a life of its own.

Orwell’s book was a book ahead of its time. At a different point in time, his book could have been dismissed as psychedelic fantasy.  Today, he is just a step behind the reality in which we live.  Verizon is sharing telephone records.  The Department of Justice is monitoring journalists, and the IRS is playing games with those who seek nonprofit status.  People pulled over for a minor traffic violation will have to submit fingerprints to find out if they have broken other laws.   Big Brother is alive and well in too many layers of our lives,

Meanwhile, market researchers are segmenting populations by zip code and consumer patterns.  They can tell you what percentage of whites; African Americans or Latinos live in a certain zip code.  They can tell you what you earn, what you are worth, and how many of your neighbors have criminal records.  The zip code data drives marketers. Does it also drive law enforcement?

A recent study indicated that African Americans are between 2 and 6 percent more likely to be arrested for marijuana violations that whites are.  I guess it is easier to arrest from a corner than from a country club!  The rate of arrests for marijuana possession is 716 per 100,000 for African Americans, compared to 192 per 100,000 for whites.  The disparity is much higher in some counties.

Does this mean that African Americans are breaking more laws, or that law enforcement officers are targeting some zip codes or communities more regularly?  It is a lot easier to pick up a few citizens enjoying marijuana in a park than banging down the doors of an elite country club.  Yet data about marijuana usages suggests that there is little to distinguish the habits of African Americans from those of whites.  The only difference is the arrest rate.

Big Brother knows.

Big Brother has driven the kind of demographic that will tell you where you can find low-income, highly unemployed individuals, no matter of race.  Big Brother can tell you who can afford lawyers and who cannot.  Big Brother can drive police to investigate the least and the left out, those who are most vulnerable, while deciding to allow others to slink behind their space of class and privilege.  Big Brother can play bang for buck games that make it more profitable to arrest those with few resources in the hood instead of those with home-based protection.

Data collection seems to be a race-neutral process.  While data collection is an input, arrests are an output.  Between input and output there is the opportunity for racial bias to show up.  If white folk and black folk take an equal toke, why are black folk more likely to be arrested?  Are zip codes driving public safety officers to one place and deterring them from another?

Differences in marijuana arrests raise real questions about the many ways that data may be used to discriminate.  Instead of structural racism, intrinsic racism, and other forms of racism, we now have a data-based racism that is only logical when we ask how data is collected.  Simply put, the zip code data leads people to discriminate, if only because they are being led to single out a certain population.