Posted on 01/13/2014 9:06:48 AM PST by kristinn
Five years in to Barack Obama’s presidency, the number of African-Americans participating in the labor force has hit rock bottom.
The news media has ignored this stunning revelation from Friday’s monthly jobs report by the Labor Department.
The exception has been PBS, which interviewed economist Dean Baker who had written about it in a report published Friday.
“The drop in labor force participation was sharpest for African Americans, who saw a decline of 0.3 percentage points to 60.2 percent, the lowest rate since December of 1977. The rate for African American men fell 0.7 percentage points to 65.6 percent, the lowest on record. The decline in labor force participation was associated with a drop in the overall African American unemployment rate of 0.5 percentage points to 11.9, and a drop of 0.6 percentage points to 11.6 percent for African American men.”
Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told PBS’s Judy Woodruff Friday that contrary to those who spin the falling labor force participation rate as mainly coming from retiring Baby Boomers, young workers are dropping out by the millions.
“…it is easy to see the big falloff in labor force participation is among prime age workers, 25-to-54-years-olds. That is down by four full percentage points. That is equivalent to five million people in their prime ages. They are not retiring at age 50.”
The White House fed black media the news that black unemployment was down five points from its 2010 high of 16.9% but did not say that this was largely the result of more African-Americans giving up on finding jobs in the Obama economy.
While black support for Obama is over 80%, some in the African-American community put their desire for a job ahead of their pride in the first black president in the 2012 election. According to Pew Research, 19% of young black men voted for Republican Mitt Romney—a loss of 14% for Obama from 2008.
Economist Walter Williams put black labor force participation in historical context in a column published last April by pointing out that up until the 1960s blacks were as well or better represented in the labor force than whites.
“From 1900 to 1954, blacks were more active than whites in the labor market. Until about 1960, black male labor force participation in every age group was equal to or greater than that of whites. During that period, black teen unemployment was roughly equal to or less than white teen unemployment. As early as 1900, the duration of black unemployment was 15 percent shorter than that of whites; today it’s about 30 percent longer.”
What happened after that? Liberalism–and now Obama.
Define “Black”.
Why work? Just let others work and the government will take the fruits of their labors and distribute it to us.
99.9 % of them voted for Obama.
I know one who voted for GWB both times, then voted for Obama both times.
And he goes to church and opposes same sex marraige
B.S. More like 0.00009%
“Five years in to Barack Obama’s presidency, the number of African-Americans participating in the labor force has hit rock bottom.”
That’s racist?
Just wait until we grant amnesty to 30m illegals. When I started working in HS in 1958..there was a labor shortage and even unskilled black men had jobs in construction and ag. Plus they were supporting families. Now those jobs are nearly all illegals. You also didn’t start at minimum wage..I never worked for minimum as a 13 year old. The RATS will destroy our economy and society if we let them and so far the GOP seems to be ok with it.
( That is P.C. bullpuckey for having a job!)
Maybe because they are living off the government.
‘Just part of the king’s plan to label it “income inequality”.
This is the PLAN. Obama/Liberals/Democrats will blame Republicans and vote 98% for the SAME results because they are INSANE. The Takers are in the ascendency and the Makers are declining. As Margaret Thatcher said: “Socialism works great until you run out of OTHER peoples money.”
It seems as if almost half the adult Negro male population is NOT WORKING. But they are all eating, smoking, fornicating, shooting up and boozing on the money provided them by hard working, barely getting by, citizens. No wonder Obama is their God. Was Lincoln wrong??? Hmmmmm?
Nothing to see here. Move on....
The O admin didn’t bother to tell folks that ‘change’ and ‘fundamentally transform’ really meant “we are going to sink your country because I(Obama) hate it.”
They do not have to work. Obama and his anti-american scum have been taking more wealth away from the productive Caucasian people and giving it to the Negroes more than ever in the history of our once-great country.
I thought it said Black Labrador....
For a minute I was thinking about Obamas war on the blind.
“participating in the labor force” is “slabery”!
The way to look at this is that a record number don’t have to work any more to support themselves!
Free at last! Free at last!
Our "wonderful" Chamber of Commerce wants many more illegals to make sure they can get nearly-free labor.
I guess they do not understand when everything collapses because of this they will no longer have anyone to buy their products or services.
The black population thinks Obama will ive it to them why work for it. Heck, apparently a lot of whites think that too - the fools.
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