The white unemployment rate fell slightly to 8 percent, according to the Labor Department, while unemployment for African-Americans rose to 16.7 percent last month, the highest it has been since 1984.
President Barack Obama has quite the assignment on his hands. Speaking at the Metro Detroit Central Labor Council rally on Labor Day, Obama said the jobs agenda speech he’ll deliver to Congress and America tonight will include proposals that have received bipartisan support in the past.
“We’ve got roads and bridges across this country that need rebuilding. We’ve got more than 1 million unemployed construction workers ready to get dirty right now,” said Obama. “There is work to be done and there are workers ready to do it. Labor’s on board; business is on board. We just need Congress to get on board.”
America currently has a 9.1 percent unemployment rate, and the sluggish recovery from the worst economic downturn to hit the United States and Europe since the Great Depression will be a central issue as Obama runs for re-election next year.
With Republicans and its Tea Party members controlling the House of Representatives, it will be difficult for Obama to present a bill that includes spending. Rep. Eric Cantor has even rejected disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Irene and the East Coast earthquake unless there are dollar for dollar budget cuts. Nonetheless, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis told NBC’s “Today” show that high hopes for Obama’s jobs speech remain despite the odds.
“The things that he’s talking about are some things that have been supported in the past by Republicans and Democrats,” said Solis on the show. Those include “infrastructure investment; helping to provide assistance to those dislocated workers, people who are out of work, who’ve been out of work for more than six months and longer; and also providing tax breaks for middle-class people, payroll taxes and for businesses.”
According to the Department of Labor, the real unemployment rate rose last month in addition to zero job growth. That rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, increased to 16.2 percent, tying this year’s record set in June and placing the total number of citizens unemployed at 26 million.
The so-called real unemployment rate is made up of the official unemployment rate, which includes part-time employees-usually because they can’t find full-time work-and people who gave up on searching for available work. According to Labor Department statistics, 42 percent of the country’s unemployed have been out of work for 27 weeks or longer.
So what’s the solution? Dr. Wilhelmina Leigh, senior research associate on Economic Security Issues at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, spoke with Charles D. Ellison of Politic365.com late last month about a recent proposal by Rep. Dan Larson to create a jobs committee.
“I think that’s a great idea,” said Leigh during the webcast, though she also mentioned that politicians could possibly overlook past ideas that have been successful in order for them to be seen as “innovators.” “We’ve tried a number of measures and some of them have worked,” stated Leigh. “We need to stop re-inventing the wheel and look at past experiences.”
Leigh also called for a re-evaluation of unemployment insurance in light of concerns about individuals being unemployed for such a long time that they lose certain skill sets.
David Jones of the Community Service Society of New York, a not-for-profit organization that promotes economic advancement and full civic participation for low-income New Yorkers, spoke with the AmNews about his expectations for Obama’s jobs speech and how unemployment is crippling young Black and Latino Americans.
“I think the president is up against it because he doesn’t have a Congress that can help him get much out of it, but the notion of looking to employment rates for the chronically unemployed in urban areas has to be the bottom line,” Jones said. “I think there are things he can do that might pass muster. A major tax credit for businesses that hire the chronically unemployed-particularly young people who are out of work in urban areas-should get bipartisan support. If he focuses on infrastructure, they have to make sure it reaches down to disconnected young people who are Black and Latino, who have been traditionally excluded from the construction trade.”
“All across the country, young people of color are mired in chronic unemployment that’s going to be devastating to future generations. This isn’t just a problem in Bed-Stuy, Harlem and the South Bronx,” said Jones.
With the high rates of unemployment, some might recommend taking a service job in order to have some money in your pocket while looking for something better. However, according to Jones, even those jobs are scarce.
“They’re struggling to get Wal-Mart jobs and service jobs,” Jones said. “They’re losing ground. We’re losing a generation of young people of all colors. I think there are things we can do locally, like paid sick leave for all workers, including lower wage workers. Many of our constituents are getting by in lower wage work that has no future and no protections that we thought were guaranteed by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.”
Furthermore, Jones has another worry when it comes to these unemployment rates. He fears the uptick in crime and violence-demonstrated by the recent Labor Day shootings in New York-is a result of lack of work.
“I was upset with the flurry of things in terms of crime over the weekend and how everyone was talking about too many guns,” said Jones. “There is too much chronic unemployment. It doesn’t mean that every unemployed young person turns to crime, but if we don’t grab this, we’re destroying 20 to 30 years of work. Without hope, you’re going to see an explosion of gangs. I don’t care how much policing you do.”