Unemployment has soared above 10 percent, but that figure doesn't
count those forced to work part-time, those who have given up in
despair, young people who were never able to get hired. There are now
25 million people unemployed.
For African Americans, it is worse. African Americans are
experiencing a silent depression. Unemployment is more than 18 percent;
underemployment even higher. And among black teens, unemployment is
more than 40 percent.
This is combined with a staggering loss of wealth among what was the
emerging African-American middle class -- a group devastated by the
collapse of the housing bubble. African-Americans were prime targets of
mortgage companies peddling misleading mortgages, with low entry rates,
hidden fees and exploding interest-rate escalation clauses. Having
redlined urban areas for decades, mortgage brokers then targeted them
for subprime mortgages. Too many families aspiring to own their own
homes assumed that their jobs were secure and that they could always
remortgage after their low entry rates expired -- and got caught.
Now foreclosures eradicate the value of neighboring homes, even when
the homeowners pay their mortgage. Loss of jobs endangers more homes.
As prices go down, homes are worth less than their mortgages, so
families can't refinace. And increasingly, young men and women can't
find jobs to help their families in the crunch.
"The untold story is that between unemployment, a significant drop
in property values, the wave of foreclosures and a lack of credit,
there is a whole generation of African-American wealth that is
disappearing," said Jean Pogge, executive vice president of ShoreBank,
a community bank serving minorities in Chicago.
Economists now project that unemployment will continue to rise next
year, probably to more than 11 percent. That will mean unemployment
rates of more than 50 percent for black teenagers. Worse, many believe
the recovery will be a jobless one, with corporate profits, the stock
market, and of course, Wall Street recovering years before the jobs
come back.
The federal government must act. What we need now are direct
employment projects: an urban corps that will employ young people and
provide them with work in everything from cleaning parks to refitting
buildings; a green corps that will employ people directly in
reforesting America and fixing up national parks. Congress needs to
expand the money going to infrastructure projects and put construction
workers to work in repairing sewers and roads. States and localities
should get aid on the condition that they sustain employment.
But more than that, we need a fundamental commitment to rebuild
America -- and to make certain that the jobs are kept in America. The
president should lay out a 10-year program to make America energy
independent that includes public investment in the green equivalents of
projects like the Tennessee Valley Authority and Hoover Dam. This also
would include major investments in wind farms and solar energy, the
refitting of buildings and modernization of America's electrical
distribution infrastructure. These investments should be combined with
buy-America provisions, ensuring those taxpayers' dollars are spent on
putting people to work here. America needs to help lead the new green
industrial revolution -- but we won't succeed without a clear policy to
ensure that we make things in America again.
In the short term, we should finance this construction and put
people to work. We should commit now to pay for it over time, taxing
Wall Street with a securities transaction tax that would slow down
speculation and generate more than $100 billion a year.
But these are details. What is needed is commitment and energy.
Nothing is more devastating than a long-term depression that crushes
hope, squanders skills and leaves men and women in poverty. We need
action, experimentation and bold efforts now.
