By State Representative, Leon D. Young
Leon D. Young
When President Barack Obama ran for reelection last year, political pundits and TV talking heads theorized that he would be at extreme political peril if the national economy didn’t improve — drastically. At the time, a precipitous drop in the unemployment rate, in particular, would have been an encouraging sign to the Obama camp. And perhaps, a harbinger of better things to come (a second term).
But, such was not the case. There was no precipitous drop in unemployment in November 2012. In fact, the unemployment rate actually rose, ever so slightly, to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent from the previous month.
Some national economists even suggested that this marginal increase in unemployment was “good news” for the economy. It indicated that more people were entering the job market. Many of those who had stopped searching for work were encouraged enough by the economy to start looking once again.
Lost in all this unemployment data is the disparate impact that joblessness is having on people of color. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the unemployment data for the month of December (2012), and while things are getting better for whites, African Americans continue to suffer from unemployment rates that would be unimaginable if those being affected were of any other race.
While White Americans are enjoying single digit unemployment (and still angry about it), Black Americans are experiencing unemployment rates that are nearly as high as they were during the Great Depression. Black unemployment rose from 12.9 percent to an astonishing 14 percent. Black male unemployment is the highest between genders, at 14 percent, while Black women are grappling with a 12.2 percent unemployment rate. Black teens are getting the worst of it, with an unemployment rate of 40.5 percent; nearly double that of white teens (21.6).
President Obama won reelection, in large measure, because of the landslide support that he received from both Black and Latino voters; garnering 93 percent of the Black vote and 71 percent of Latino voters, respectively. But, things are far from being right for two of President Obama’s core constituencies. A federal jobs initiative would be of great economic benefit to countless Black Americans, while enactment of a comprehensive immigration reform measure remains the political bottom line for many Latino Americans.
In 2012, Black and Latino voters did their thing (332 to 206, in electoral votes) for President Barack Obama. This begs the question: What is he [the president] willing to do in return for us?