The question is jobs

By Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.
TriceEdneyWire.com Columnist

We have a brutal — and worsening — jobs crisis in this country. The human casualties are mounting. But Washington doesn’t get it. The focus there is on cutting spending, not on creating jobs. We witness an Alice in Wonderland world where powerful legislators believe that they have the power to turn nonsense into logic. They are wrong; and we are likely to suffer for it.

Last month’s jobs numbers were horrible, but the crisis is much deeper than one month of bad news. As Charles McMillion reports, in the U.S., the private sector employs nearly two million fewer Americans than it did in 2000 — at a time when the U.S. had 30 million fewer people. The only other time the US has lost jobs for that long was in the Great Depression. Since 2000, the U.S. has lost 5.5 million manufacturing jobs, or nearly one-third of all manufacturing employment. The Great Recession drove unemployment up, but the decline in good jobs has been going on for over a decade.

For African Americans, the Great Recession is a Great Depression. We are in danger of losing an entire generation, even as what was an emerging middle class is decimated. CBS News reports that the unemployment rate among African Americans in the United States is now at 16.2 percent; for Black teenagers, it is a devastating 41 percent. In New York City, as in Chicago and other urban centers, African-American men are suffering worse than Depression level unemployment. 34 percent of New York City’s young Black men aged 19 to 24 are not working. The percentage of Black men with jobs is the lowest level since the Labor Department began keeping records in the 1970s.

The housing collapse hit African Americans and Latinos the hardest. The Center for Responsible Lending estimates that property depreciation will cost African Americans $194 billion. Eight percent of homes owned by Latinos and African Americans are lost to foreclosure. The question is jobs — and Washington seems intent on making it worse. Republican leaders push for deep cuts in spending, arguing that will help create jobs. But this is fantasy speak.

Government spending cuts at the local, state and federal level are forcing layoffs of teachers, police and other government employees, as well as private sector employees in government contractors from construction companies to universities. Republicans say that while cutting spending may cost government jobs — “so be it,” said House Speaker John Boehner — the cuts will reassure businesses who are now not hiring, because they fear future taxes or future interest rate hikes. But with interest rates near record lows and tax breaks for new investment, any business worth its salt would borrow now if it had profitable prospects. What businesses lack are customers, not confidence. And that will be worse as spending cuts lay off workers, and the expiration of unemployment insurance terminates income support for millions by the end of the year.

Conservatives argue that even though deficit reduction is important, avoiding top end tax hikes is far more important. “We can’t raise taxes on “job creators.” That sounds good, but the jobs creators aren’t creating jobs with the tax breaks we’ve already given them. In fact, companies are sitting on trillions in profits. The richest captured nearly two-thirds of all income growth since 2000, and pay the lowest tax rates in a generation, yet we lost jobs over that time. We’d do better taxing the big corporations and wealthiest Americans and using that money to rebuild America and put people to work.

This is a national emergency. The president had a deficit commission. Now we need an Emergency Commission on Jobs and the Economy, convening business and labor leaders to lay out a bold agenda for jobs and economic revival. Challenge those who stand in the way. Let Americans have a choice. A nation that writes off a generation because of partisan politics has lost more than its way; it has lost its soul.

This article was originally published in the July 25, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper