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September 20, 2012

  • Judge Issues Certificates of Innocence to Four Men

    Judge Issues Certificates of Innocence to Four Men The men are entitled to nearly $200,000 each under Illinois law by Frederick H. Lowe A Cook County, Ill., judge has issued certificates of innocence to four black men who served long prison terms for a crime that DNA evidence proved they did not commit. On Friday, Judge Paul P.

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  • Obama Camp Fires Back After Romney’s “47%” Diatribe

    Obama Camp Fires Back After Romney’s “47%” Diatribe by Barry Cooper The Obama campaign wasted little time striking back at Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Tuesday. Within hours after a secret videotape emerged of Romney making seemingly disparaging remarks about nearly half the U.S.

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  • Jackson Gets Two Men Freed from a Gambia Prison

    Jackson Gets Two Men Freed from a Gambia Prison by Frederick H. Lowe Two men who were serving long prison sentences in Gambia have left the West African Country after the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. negotiated their release with the country’s President, Dr.

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  • The Real Count of Monte Cristo Was a Black Man

    The Real Count of Monte Cristo Was a Black Man Alexandre Dumas wrote the story based in part on his father’s life The Count of Monte Cristo, one of literature’s most-enduring novels, is based on the real life of a black man, who rose from private to general in the French Army, became a valued aide to Napoleon Bonaparte and later, an object of Napoleon's envy, according to the book, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, which hit bookstores on Tuesday.

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  • Feds Hammer Tool Company Because of Its Racist Hiring Practices

    Meyer Tool Inc., a federal contractor that displays on its website photographs of a smiling President George W.

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  • Homes Headed by Single Black Men See Drop in Poverty

    Homes Headed by Single Black Men See Drop in Poverty by Frederick H. Lowe The poverty rate for families headed by single-black men has declined since 2010, while poverty rates for households headed by single white and Asian men have increased.

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  • Transportation Can Help Black Men Find Better-Paying Jobs

    Transportation Can Help Black Men Find Better-Paying Jobs by Frederick H. Lowe The Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, will host a special forum on Wednesday, September 26, in Washington, D.C., focused on black men.

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  • Supreme Court Will Hear Arguments on Affirmative Action

    Supreme Court Will Hear Arguments on Affirmative Action New America Media Q & A  by Khalil Abdullah Editor’s Note: On October 10 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Fisher v. University of Texas, a case that could upend affirmative action policies nationwide.

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  • FAMU: Drum Major Actively Participated in Hazing

    FAMU: Drum Major Actively Participated in  Hazing Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Capital Outlook by Kanya Stewart (TriceEdneyWire.com) - Robert Champion, Jr.

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  • Statue of Frederick Douglass to Be Placed in Capitol

    Statue of Frederick Douglass to Be Placed in Capitol President Obama must sign the legislation Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper (TriceEdneyWire.

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  • Worldwide Employment Outlook Still Bleak for Youth

    Worldwide Employment Outlook Still Bleak for Youth (TriceEdneyWire.com) - The employment outlook for young people worldwide is grim, according to an analysis released September 4 by the International Labor Organization.

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  • Michigan Business Associations Merge

    The Michigan Black Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Black Suppliers on Thursday announced they have merged to increase member access to capital and to help them compete worldwide.

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  • 100 Black Men to Get a New Man

    100 Black Men to Get a New Man Curley M. Dossman, Jr., vice president of community affairs at Georgia Pacific Co., later this month will be installed as chairman of 100 Black Men of America Inc.

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  • IRS Asked to Investigate Texas Church That Called for Obama’s Defeat

    Americans United for Separation of Church and State has asked the IRS to investigate an El Paso, Texas, Roman Catholic church after an item in the church bulletin called for the defeat of President Barack Obama in November’s presidential election. St.

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  • Michelle Obama Will Address the CBC

    Michelle Obama Will Address the CBC WASHINGTON (TriceEdneyWire.com) – For the first time during his administration, President Barack Obama will not be the keynote speaker at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Phoenix Awards Dinner this Saturday, an event that brings to a close the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference (CBC-ALC).

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  • President Obama Fails to Score a Touchdown With Convention Speech

    President Obama Fails to Score a Touchdown With Convention Speech by A. Peter Bailey (TriceEdneyWire.com) - To use a football analogy, during the Democratic National Convention, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, First Lady Michelle Obama, former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden advanced the ball for President Obama to the ten yard-line.

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  • The Poor Could Be Strong Swing Vote

    The Poor Could Be Strong Swing Vote by Rev. Jesse L. Jackson (TriceEdneyWire.com) - Nearly 50 million Americans now are in poverty. One in four children will grow up in an impoverished household. Redressing poverty is a national emergency and a moral imperative.

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  • Netanyahu’s “Red Line” Is Just a Red Herring

    Netanyahu’s “Red Line” Is Just a Red Herring by Wilmer J. Leon, III (TriceEdneyWire.com) - News sources have reported that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu requested a meeting with President Obama to discuss tightening restrictions on Iran and that President Obama has rejected his request.

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  • The NorthStar’s Week in Black History

    The NorthStar’s Week in Black History September 20 through September 26 September 20 1943 ----- A German submarine, U-238, torpedoed the Frederick Douglass, a U. S. cargo ship, on this day.

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  • Pennsylvania Voter-ID Law Remanded to a Lower Court

    Pennsylvania Voter-ID Law Remanded to a Lower Court by Frederick H. Lowe The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Tuesday vacated a lower-court decision, upholding the commonwealth’s restrictive voter Photo-ID law, in a case that easily could be called "The Pennsylvania bureaucracy strikes back." Because the law does not meet PennDOT (Pennsylvania Department of Transportation) issuing guidelines, the law faces significant challenges from the bureaucracy, which could block its implementation.

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Julianne Malveaux
Julianne Malveaux, Ph. D.

Double Whammy for African Americans

by Julianne Malveaux
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - We have learned that African-American unemployment rates stayed level last month with an absurdly high official unemployment rate of 14.1 percent.

Unemployment rates for African-American men fell, while those for African-American women rose. These rates are far too high and understate the extent of pain that exists in the African-American community.  The philosopher Albert Camus wrote, “Without work, all life goes rotten," because so many people value and define themselves by the work they do.  

Indeed, at many professional social gatherings the first, second, or third question is “What do you do?"  Work seems to anchor us to stability and to the world.Too many African-American people have no anchor.

While President Obama, Vice-President Biden and other key Democrats have acknowledged that unemployment rates are not falling quickly enough, few deal with the psychic effects that unemployment has on people.  For many it causes a malaise and a sense of absolute disconnection. Others feel disillusioned and depressed, although others use their own talent at entrepreneurship to create work where there is none, using skills to offer goods and services to their neighbors.

We don’t need government data to validate the pain that many in the African-American community experience, far more pain than is being experienced in other communities. The overall unemployment rate dropped from 8.3 to 8.1 percent while the rate of unployment for African Americans unemployment stayed level.  This means some are enjoying our tepid economic recovery, while others are waiting for gains to trickle down.

Unemployment data were released on September 7, and the poverty data were released on September 12. That’s a double whammy for African-Americans. Not only is the employment situation stagnant, with “real” unemployment rising as high as 25 percent, but new data on income and poverty suggest, again, that African-Americans experience a greater burden than others in our society.  The poverty rate among African-Americans rose from 27.6 to 27.8 percent.  Some might describe these numbers as ”not statistically significant,” but try telling that to the 200,000 more African Americans in poverty.

Overall, poverty rates dropped slightly from 15.2 to 15.1 percent.  This means that nearly one in six Americans experience poverty, while one in four African-Americans and Hispanics experience poverty.

Incomes have dropped by more than 8 percent in 2007, and again African-Americans have lost more.  While household incomes fell by 1.5 percent from 2010 to 2011, African Americans incomes fell by 2.7 percent, the largest drop of any racial or ethnic group.  I don’t mean to underestimate anyone’s pain.  All incomes fell, but African- American incomes fell most.  African American incomes hit their peak in 1999 at $38,700.  Today, with dollars adjusted, the amount is $32,200, the lowest level since 1997, or more than 15 years.  At the top or at the bottom, African Americans lost  ground.

In the face of this double whammy, how do we answer the Reagan question –“Are you better off than you were four years ago?"  

Economists have described the “misery index” as the sum of unemployment rates and poverty rates, and using that index, all of America has seen erosion in status. Still, legislation to improve both poverty and unemployment rates has been stuck in legislative gridlock because House Republicans would rather see people suffer than to see President Obama appear successful.  But for the obduracy of House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and his posse, including Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan (R-WI), we might see lower unemployment and poverty rates.

More importantly, the Congressional Budget Office says that extreme spending cuts and lower tax rates for the wealthy will plunge us into recession in six months or so.  As President Barack Obama says, we have choices; we are at a fork in the road.  With an unresponsive Congress, I am not sure how quickly President Obama can lead us to economic recovery, but with a change in strategy, I am absolutely certain that Romney-Ryan will plunge us into disaster. The double whammy of poverty and unemployment is a body blow.  Spending and tax cuts will take African Americans from the hospital into the emergency room.


Julianne Malveaux, Ph.D. is a Washington, D.C.-based economist and author
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