Critical Summer for Many African American jobs

CLEVELAND -- Unemployed for two years and growing increasingly frustrated, Charet Thomas thinks that neither Congress nor the White House is looking out for her or others who compose the nation's 15.9 percent jobless rate among African-Americans.
"I think people getting off unemployment and getting jobs are middle-class people," said Thomas, who was laid off from her job at a nonprofit agency. "The African-Americans, we're on the back burner. I truly believe that."
With her resume in hand and her best clothing on, Thomas waited patiently in line Monday with thousands of other unemployed or underemployed people here at a jobs fair and town-hall meeting sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus.
The Cleveland event launched a jobs fair-town hall tour by the caucus, a monthlong, five-city campaign that's as much a message to congressional leaders and President Barack Obama as it is a vehicle to help unemployed African-Americans find work. More than 4,000 people attended the Cleveland fair, where 100 employers had 2,500 jobs to fill.
"We didn't want to just sit around and complain. We decided to do something about it," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., the chairman of the black caucus said, of his group's first hands-on employment effort. "This will send a message to Washington that this is a crisis that can be ignored no longer. If the images of what's going on here reach Washington ... it would take a very mean-spirited conscience, or no conscience at all, to allow people to ignore this."
The recession has been especially hard on African-American households. Not only is the seasonally adjusted jobless rate among African-Americans much higher than the nation's overall rate - 15.9 percent, compared with 9.1 percent - but the gap between black household wealth and that of white households is widening.
A report last month by the Pew Research Center found that in 2009, the median wealth of black families - assets minus debts - was just $5,677, while the typical white family had a net worth of $113,149, the greatest disparity between the groups since the government began keeping such records nearly a quarter-century ago.
Several Congressional Black Caucus members want the White House and Congress to develop programs specifically targeted at lowering African-American unemployment. The more than 40 bills the caucus has introduced aimed at addressing African-American unemployment have gone nowhere in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
The Obama administration also has done little targeted specifically at easing the plight of African-Americans, instead saying that the way to do that is to improve the economy overall. Obama repeatedly has quoted the saying, "A rising tide lifts all boats."


The Obama Administration has seemed reluctant to create specific policies geared toward helping the Black community, which has been disproportionately left behind in the collapse, or throw it’s weight behind CBC supported bills. As the President says he is sticking to the idea that helping all Americans will help Black America, members seem to be increasingly vocal about their displeasure with the president and are coming up with their own solutions to help Black America recover-an absolute must-as congressional approval ratings dip to a low of 14 percent.


For Black leaders in particular helping to create jobs and stave off state budget cuts will be an absolute priority in August.


The Congressional Black Caucus says that their number one priority during August is to help stimulate jobs. They’re encouraging all their members to either host or attend town halls as part of their “For the People Jobs Initiative Tour” which will begin on Monday in Ohio. The effort hopes to reach out to citizens across the country, particularly African Americans and connect them with employers.


Strategies like this are essential according Roderick Harrison, sociologist at Howard University and at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies who believes this that the proposed two trillion dollars in cuts resulting from the deficit deal will profoundly impact African Americans communities around the country.


“These are communities that have taken body blows from the recession and in some cases they are getting worse. During this recess I think [members] need to be sounding the alarm bell with constituents, said Harrison.


He says that groups like the Tea Party can become real impediments for Democratic candidates in the fall because they have proved much more mobilized than anyone realized.


“We’re on the verge of another panic. It’s going to be a battle and people better be mobilized. Conservatives have much more energy. People need to mobilize and they need to start now,” says Harrison.