Posted on 03/29/2013 1:06:09 PM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's failed job policies are facing bitter criticism from African-American leaders who say black unemployment has grown worse under his presidency.
After four years of holding their tongues and remaining quiet in the face of sharply rising black unemployment and record poverty, political leaders from the Congressional Black Caucus to the NAACP have begun to open fire on the White House.
Obama won 96 percent of the black vote in 2008 and about the same percentage in 2012, despite a worsening jobless crisis among African-Americans. At 14 percent for adults and 43.1 percent for 16-to-19-year-old teenagers, blacks still have the highest jobless rate of any minority group in the U.S.
Black leaders in Congress largely kept their complaints to themselves throughout Obama's first term in office and his re-election campaign. But no longer.
The nation's black leadership has become a great deal more vocal lately about severe unemployment, fewer job opportunities, and a weak, lackluster economy. They are especially unhappy with the fact that Obama has placed relatively few black officials in top level positions in his second term administration.
It didn't get that much media attention, but shortly after Obama was inaugurated in January, NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Jealous went on nationwide television to condemn Obama's weak job creation record, charging that black Americans "are doing a full point worse" than when Obama became president.
"The country's back to pretty much where it was when this president started," Jealous said on Meet The Press on Jan. 27.
The government's employment numbers maintained by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics support Jealous' latest criticism. The black unemployment rate was 12.7 percent when President George W. Bush finished his second term and Obama took office.
It soared over the first three years of Obama's first term to 16.7 percent by September 2011 (the worst jobless rate for black Americans since 1983). Unemployment among black teenagers exploded to 39.3 percent in July, 2012.
"Statistics show that the African-American community is in bad shape under the Obama administration," the widely read web site "Your Black World" said this week.
Earlier this month, Democratic Rep. Marcia L. Fudge of Ohio, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, let loose with some stinging criticisms of Obama's record on his appointments in his second term.
"The people you have chosen to appoint in this new term have hardly been reflective of this country's diversity," she said in a letter to Obama. "Their ire is compounded by the overwhelming support you've received from the African-America community."
Fudge and other CBC members complain that Obama has not devoted enough attention in his agenda to many of the critical economic issues within the black community, especially rising unemployment.
"I think we are going to hear more voices of opposition coming from all sectors of black leadership, and certainly from the most hard pressed sections of the black population," said Dr. Tony Monteiro, professor of African American Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Unfortunately, most black leaders do not understand that it is Obama's anti-growth, economic policies that have contributed to the persistently high level of unemployment among all Americans, especially African-Americans.
The NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus still believe that Obama's $800 billion economic stimulus plan, largely made up of public works, infrastructure and other government spending, was the smart way to create jobs and boost economic growth. If anything, they wanted him to spend more.
But there were no economic growth incentives in his plan that would boost venture capital investment, the mother's milk of business expansion, new business formation and job creation.
Soon after Obama's stimulus plan became effective and the money began flowing out across the country, a look at the list of recipients revealed that it included hundreds of federal agencies and programs. It expanded government spending, and maybe some of the money trickled down to workers, but it created relatively few permanent jobs.
Once the stimulus funds were spent on roads, bridges and other public workers projects, the jobs ended.
The proof that Obama's Keynesian spending didn't work is in the numbers: high unemployment that is still skirting 8 percent, and it is actually 14 percent if you include workers who want and need full-time employment but are forced to take part-time jobs.
And the economy isn't getting stronger, as we can see in the economic growth numbers that measure the gross domestic product (GDP) that is the sum of everything we produce, sell and export. It grew at a barely-moving pace 0.4 percent in the last three months of 2012, according to the Commerce Department's latest estimate Thursday.
The Federal Reserve says unemployment will remain high this year and next and economic growth will remain weak for at least the next two years.
Now Obama is calling for a $9 an hour minimum wage which the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus has supported in the past and no doubt supports now. But this is a job killer, particularly for small businesses and especially for minorities. It will kill entry-level training jobs and that will drive black employment even higher.
In an interview with the College Fix web site, Antony Davies, an economics professor at Duquesne University, explains why: "When businesses -- especially small businesses -- are faced with increased labor costs due to minimum wage hikes, less valuable jobs are eliminated. After that, the extra workload is doled out to remaining employees."
Or as economist Murray Rothbard writes in his book, The Free Market, "In truth, there is only one way to regard a minimum wage law: it is compulsory unemployment, period."
Meantime, it is becoming increasingly self-evident that black leaders are getting fed up with the economic results of Obama's presidency. For the first time, they have begun to question and to criticize some of the economic policies that he still defends but that they now know aren't working
When people ask me about the economy I have adopted a new answer. “Well, anyone who voted for Obama did it for social reasons. They wanted free healthcare, they wanted to have a black President, they wanted more government programs etc... But nobody voted for him expecting the economy would do anything but crash and burn. Life is a matter of choices, its what people want.”
Pesky drug testing, high school diplomas, proper English, and working at least 30 hours a week to make a living to get benefits is JUST TOO MUCH TROUBLE!
...so much easier sitting at home waiting for a tax payer funded hand out from some inefficient gov’t agency that is going broke...
NO ONE on the dole in the black welfare state is complaining...what has happened is that the black leaders are aware that the REPORTED statistics...prove that many blacks are simply:
UNEMPLOYABLE!!!!!
I’ll believe the Blacks are pissed when Je$$ie Jacka$$ tears into nobama. Till then, this is just for show.
Bingo
That is because he doesn’t deserve respect
English is my second language and I never heard that phrase. So I went the Thesaurus in Merriam Webster and sure enough it's a synonym for audacity. Thanks
Chumps Open Fire on Obama Over Unemployment
fixed it.
The racists are getting restless toward the racist in the White hut. This is making me rethink my imaginary scenario that Buckwheat will rally his black brethren to attack honkeys. It’s starting to look like black racist against other black racists. I’m buying popcorn tomorrow.
About time...
China is taking over.
America needs to get with it, stop fighting each other, stop taxing everything, and BRING BACK AMERICA JOBS.
Yet here we are. Democrats raising taxes. GOP sending more jobs overseas.
Hello?
My comments are limited by the mods. Please, don’t ask me to elaborate!
Hey, blacks, isn’t this what you voted for?
Black leaders = political slaves
Hey black leaders FU! Did you really think Obama and the left give a crap about you?
Hey black leaders FU! Did you really think Obama and the left give a crap about you?
This is rich. They haven’t even BEGUN to feel the pinch of what this president has in store for them ...I hope it hits them even worse. I want them to suffer — REALLY suffer.
Because they STILL don’t want what we want ...they want what hardworking Americans HAVE — without having to work for it.
History and other countries have shown that this crowd NEVER learns.
You forgot his butt pal Reggie love. Other than him and j-z, you are right. he like older white men.
Why? Most blacks I deal with had no problem sticking it in my face the last 2 elections.
I saw this crap coming and paid off my house and have no real debt, no credit cards, and have been stocking up for the bad times to come.
Most of them have been trying to get any free money from “the Man” OWED to them. OWED meaning cause they are black. They cheered obamacare’s passage and by next year (where I work) will no longer have ANY healthcare.
Trying to give a damn but failed miserably. Call me a bad man if you must, but I JUST DON’T GIVE A F@#K! I live in the hood and work at a 98% minority workplace, so calling me racist won’t work.
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