Posted on 03/26/2010 6:53:57 AM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON -- The harsh economic reality for black Americans and their national leaders here is that black unemployment is worsening under the policies of the first black president.
The sadder political reality is that these leaders, frustrated that blacks have the highest jobless rate among all other Americans, are going easy on President Obama, with polls showing virtually no decline in black support for him, at least not yet.
Even more depressing, black leaders are still calling for more of the same old economic bromides to deal with black unemployment, unwilling to break with leftist Democratic policies that have made things worse for their own people.
While the national unemployment rate for all Americans is at nearly 10 percent (17 percent if you count people who have given up looking for jobs or work only part time), the black jobless rate stands at 15.8 percent and a lot higher than that in states such as Michigan, New York and California.
Jobless statistics in key sectors of the black population are off the charts for younger blacks. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than half of black males between the ages of 16 and 19 are unemployed.
If George W. Bush -- or any Republican, for that matter -- were still in the White House, black leaders would be pounding the White House for their failure to create more jobs. The nightly news programs would be running nonstop stories about inner-city unemployment and the bleak employment picture among minorities.
But as the jobless numbers worsened in black communities as well as across the country, the complaints among black leaders in Congress were few and far between or at least muted.
A recent front-page headline over a Washington Post story about black unemployment read, "Black Caucus frustrated but reluctant to say so," with the subhead that read, "Lawmakers think Obama should be doing more for African Americans, but they won't criticize him."
But as the situation grows more desperate among black Americans, who are beginning to see little or no evidence that they are benefiting from the nearly $1 trillion the president is spending on the jobs programs he has signed into law, black leaders are beginning to speak up. The first faint glimmers of political unrest are beginning to be seen and heard.
Increasingly disgruntled Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) leaders are now saying that White House officials have taken them for granted, believing that they would not publicly criticize one of their own.
Black leaders admit that they held their tongues and kept quiet in public, despite their frustrations. But as the complaints grew back home about the dismal economic environment blacks face, the feedback is becoming a bit more testy and more critical.
"We concluded they were just kind of listening to us and that then they would go back (to their offices) and conclude that we would do nothing," Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, the CBC's vice chairman, told the Post's Michael Leahy. "Because they had concluded there's a black president in the White House and that, to some degree, the Black Caucus, you know, was constrained in expressing its desires. After a while, we said, 'Hey, we see what's going on and it's nothing.'"
Black leaders met privately with Obama earlier this month, but thus far they remain in line with his economic policies, more big-spending jobs bills, higher taxes to pay for them and an increased minimum wage that at $7.25 an hour has priced younger blacks out of the workforce.
And state minimum-wage laws are pushing the hourly wage higher to $8 or more in places such as California, Illinois and Massachusetts, where it is a job killer.
Raising the minimum wage was one of Obama's first economic moves and, to a large degree, is responsible for reducing the number of jobs for unskilled, unemployed blacks who are disproportionately high-school dropouts. As Democrats and Obama have pushed the minimum wage ever higher, entry-level jobs for the unskilled have fallen sharply and black unemployment has grown exponentially.
While Obama spends his time bashing the big banks and the insurance companies and business, the entry-level jobs these black Americans are desperately seeking have disappeared.
Black leaders last week were pushing for more spending on summer youth jobs, government training programs and public-works projects when they should be calling for a lower minimum wage, or a youth differential wage to make them employable again.
When black leaders came out of the White House following their one-hour meeting earlier this month, California Rep. Barbara Lee, who heads the CBC, said, "We talked about the desperation that we're feeling in our communities throughout the country."
That desperation is only going to get worse as long as Barack Obama and black leaders continue to pursue the same old tax-and-spend policies to grow government instead of policies that will grow the private economy.
The first generation of illegals worked hard. You would work hard to if the USA was a third world country with no money and no jobs. But you could go to Canada, and get a job the next day making hundreds of dollars.
By your reasoning we should give everyone in China a USA citizenship because they would work hard.
America was doing just fine before the globalists opened the borders and allowed about 25 million of the worlds most uneducated socialists to invade.
“Speaking of STUPID, saw a bit of stupidpak crying about mean ol Pubbies on “tingle up my leg” spitmaker matthews last night.”
I hope that sell-out gets what’s coming to him this November. Maybe a solid conservative can win the GOP primary there and then let the voters demonstrate in the Nov. general election what they think of Stupidpak selling out protection for the unborn for some water project (or whatever he sold out for). Everyone knows President JugEars signed his anti-abortion EO in disappearing ink.
Excellent analysis. I know where you’re coming from. One thing you need to keep in mind about the Hispanic illegitimacy rate (and it is ghastly) is that the Hispanic male tends to stay with the woman they impregnate. Blacks have more of a random, serial, laugh it off and move on the the next one mentality. After all, the white man will — and should —pay.
“Amnesty for illegals isn’t even on their radar.”
Most of them don’t know what “amnesty” means.
This is an ongoing problem. but is it stupidity or ignorance? We all say 'can't fix stupid' but we are going to have to try to somehow break through the barriers. There are conservative 'black' leaders and they should be manning the front lines in an effort to educate (imo) and during the lesson, they can show the stark differences between philosphies and how the black people have become 'enslaved' to the state.
I'm not a good debater or instructor because I lose patience with the other side and end up wanting to choke the everloving crap out of the opponent, but there are some that have the patience & ability to transform (loathe that word now) thinking. This is part of what we need right now.
Call it what you will. Work is there, but people can't pay what they used. Even for the able-bodied guy with a pickup truck, chainsaws, and the rigging to do tree surgery.
"I am not swimming in Egypt", said Tom, deep in denial.
They should all try to become “hip-hop artists”, you know “the next lil wayne”.
Amnesty gonna wack em down another notch. It will vault Hispanics as the numero uno “minority” and the AA train rolls on right over the black man.
It’s happening in Minnesota already.
I agree with what you said, instead of focusing on immigrants and looking for the best and brghtest, we’ve settled on political correctness and focus on the lazy and stupid.
Many of those jobs would go to legal “guest workers,” per informal polling I have done of small business owners (many of them immigrants themselves from every continent) regarding the feasibility of hiring hood rats.
stupid is as stupid does
will the last entrepreneur with a work ethic who is tired of carrying free loaders on his back- please turn out the lights when you leave the economy
I felt like an owl for almost a year, till I replaced being unemployed by being under-employed...
Went from about $11/hr sitting on my arse, to $8/hr...
And people said I was stupid for taking this job...
The jury is still out on that case...
As a kind of cross-rate equation between black and Mexican voting blocs, I hadn't given that much thought ..... but I'll bet you're right. Zero cares more about 25,000,000 new votes than he does about spiking up turnout in the old black wards.
Natalie Arceneaux and Tom Sowell (and Michael Steele, if he ever comes to work) need to crank up the volume a bit on this angle.
The worst thing to ever happen to Black Americans since the sixties was to let themselves be “guided” by the Democrat Party. Virtually all the elected leaders of the Black districts, Maxine Waters etal, are the worst collection of scoundrels to ever lead any group of people. They and the Dem Party are gigantic anchors on the efforts of Black Americans to get ahead.
MAY I SAY THIS . . . AGAIN?
Hoover, Truman and Eisenhower deported illegal aliens in order to make jobs available for returning Military.
It took Eisenhower 2 years and he also deported documented workers on behalf of the Military.
IF OBAMA AND THIS ADMINISTRATION AND THE DEMOCRATS REALLY CARED ABOUT OUR MILITARY, THEY WOULD EMULATE THESE THREE FORMER PRESIDENTS.
Two days ago, I was in the grocery store and saw a very young girl (maybe eight years old?) with a distended belly that was indicative of either (a) malnourishment (but she looked otherwise healthy) or (b) pregnancy. I think (b) was more likely.
She was accompanied by her elderly grandparents. Grandfather was in a wheelchair.
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