Women’s Wage Disparities? How About Ours?

As I was surfing through the cable news channels the other night, I saw a video by the Women’s Law Center, whose fundamental message would do wonders for bringing greater economic equity to black Americans.

It's called “Women Are Not Worth Less.” It's on YouTube.

It's actually a very slick and effective presentation. In it, a young woman of European descent looks directly into the camera and makes the point that “Women are not worth less” (Please note, she doesn’t say “worthless,” but “worth less”). Her issue, of course, and that of the Law Center, is that, according to the most recent U.S. Census data, as of 2009, women earned 77 percent of what men earned. White women’s median annual income, according to that Census report, was cited at $36,276.

During the fast-paced presentation, you see the spokeswoman and other female actors holding large, bright-red signs in front of themselves that read: “23% less.” In one scene, the spokeswoman is shown standing back-to-back with a young white man and she says to him, sarcastically, over her shoulder: “You’re taller, maybe that’s why I make 23 percent less than you.” In another, she’s seen haggling with a fruit vendor on the sidewalk, trying to get a 23 percent discount on the purchase of an apple, because she earns less money. During morning rush hour, in another scene, she shouts out to female passers-by that she knows “It’s hard coming to work, when you make 23 percent less than a man does.”

At the close, the video encourages the U.S. Senate to move quickly to pass the “Paycheck Fairness Act,” which is designed to eliminate gender-based pay inequality and make it easier for women to file class-action suits against employers accused of sex-based pay discrimination. The bill was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008, but is still awaiting a positive vote in the Senate. President Obama, with much fanfare, called it a “common sense bill,” in July of this year.

Wow!

Hold up signs with “23 % less” splashed across them…get supportive statements from the President of the United States… do slick video/YouTube campaigns, putting pressure on the U.S. Senate…why can’t we do that?

I raise the question because there’s another piece of income inequality data in the most recent Census report, i.e.,that the median black household earned 59.8 percent as much as the median white household earned in 2009. That compares to 1975, when the median black household earned 59.6 cents for every dollar earned by the median white household.

That’s a two-tenths of one cent improvement over 35 years. Is that the great economic progress that so many of our national leaders--black and white--have said we should be so grateful for, in all of their public pronouncements about "black conditions" in America?

At that rate, it will take us 175 years to make up a whole penny in the black-white wage gap. At that rate, it will take us more than 7000 years to make up the 40.2 percent gap between black and white income levels, assuming that whites don’t continue to expand their absolute income, at all, over the period.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have 7,000 years to wait for income equity for black folks.

If white females feel justified in going to the House, the Senate, the President and, potentially, to the highest courts in the land to eliminate their wage gap, where’s our campaign? Where are our “40 % less” signs? Where is the Congressional vote in favor of wiping out the black-white pay disparity in this country, which has existed, at least, since the Constitution was signed in 1787?

We need to wake up and get off our backsides.

Even black people who have consistently been opposed to the concept of reparations “because none of the contemporary, mainstream institutions are currently engaged in, or were responsible for, slavery,” should understand that the concern about the black-white earnings disparity is not based on correcting some 150-year-old historical injustice. Rather, it's based on a current, daily and ongoing unfairness, traceable to the fact that some of us happen to be black.

And don’t fall for the tired old rhetoric that “if black people would simply get an education, their income disparity would disappear." That’s simply not true.

According to a recent report, “Educational Attainment in the United States: 2005,” black high school grads earned $23,498, as compared to $30,197 for white high school grads. Blacks with bachelors degrees earned $42,342, as compared to $53,411 for white bachelors degree holders, and blacks with doctoral degrees earned $82,615, as compared to $94,426 for white doctoral degree holders. So much for the education argument; that's clearly not the whole answer.

Isn’t this an issue, then, for the Black Caucus, the guys who just had that great, upscale party in D.C. in September?

Over a single, four-day period, in late September, mainstream media carried two very conflicting stories – one said that the U.S poverty rate had risen to 14.3 percent in 2009, the highest rate since 1994, and that the 43.6 million Americans living in poverty is the highest level in the 51 years since such records have been kept. The other story, which I’m sure you all saw, informed us that the “Great Recession” has officially ended.

As deeply unsettling as the overall poverty rate news was, if you dug a little deeper, you learned that the poverty rate for black Americans is nearly twice the white rate, at 25.8 percent. That has a great deal to do with the fact that our families earn, on average, only 59 percent of white household income.

I don’t know about you, but, as I’ve mentioned previously, I’m really beginning to get a little nervous about the integrity and credibility of the economic information that we get fed every day. It’s starting to smell.

I know, I know….technically, a recession ends after a declining economy hits its low point and starts to head back up in a positive direction. The economists usually determine all of that by looking at factors that comprise the nation's Gross Domestic Product, including private consumption levels, business investment rates, government spending and the national trade balance.

The U.S. economy still seems to be "sucking wind" by every one of those measures, with the lone exception of government spending. I’ll go out on a limb and predict that, with the rising influence of the Tea Party, fiscal and social conservativism and the Republican Party, in general, there will be a budget reduction mania sweeping the country that will sharply reduce government spending as a contributor to GDP, in the months to come, bringing back our friend, the Great Recession, for a second "dip." The housing market is dead in the water, businesses are reluctant to expand or hire, large corporations continue to send investments and jobs overseas, unemployment is at historically high levels – especially in black communities – and banks are only lending money to people who are so well off that they don’t need any loans.

The recession is over? They can't honestly expect us--especially us-- to believe that.

We've got eyes don’t we?

When will our government leaders realize that until we significantly modify our business model, until we reduce the incentive for businesses to cut costs by sending jobs overseas, and until we reduce the incentive to generate unending streams of quarterly profits--no matter what-- there is scant probability that there will be a credible economic recovery here in the U.S., in the foreseeable future?

And, finally, with other demographic groups, whose economic issues are nowhere near as desperate or as urgent as ours, already in the streets, in the Halls of Congress and on the Internet fighting for a larger share of the "American economic pie," what in God’s name are we waiting for?

Let’s start flashing our “40 % less" signs, on a regular basis, whenever we choose to gather to make a political point, and let’s put our own black-white wage disparity video on YouTube.

It’s way past time that we did so.

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It's Hard Out Here For An “Assimilator.”

The current, distressed U.S. economy is making it very difficult for people in our community who count residential assimilation among their top-priority life’s goals.

What happens in our individual households and neighborhoods--black or white-- is often driven by larger, even global, forces that we’ve been taught to take pretty much for granted.

In a perverse way, as an example, we’ve grown almost “comfortable” with hearing every month that the overall unemployment rate in this country continues to be just below 10 percent. When unemployment rates have come close to that range in other "developed"nations, people have, literally, “taken to the streets.”

In fact, over the 2008-2010 period, the comparably calculated unemployment rate in Greece was 9.5 percent; in France, 9.1 percent, in the UK, 7.7 percent, and Italy reported 7.9 percent as its unemployment rate. Each of these countries has had to deal with angry mobs of their own citizens staging violent, and sometimes lethal, demonstrations in opposition to their country's economic policies.

Last week, the U.S. Labor Department disclosed that, as of August, there were 14.9 million unemployed persons in the United States and that the country's unemployment rate had increased from 9.5 percent to 9.6 percent, that white male unemployment now stood at 8.9 percent and that black male unemployment was almost twice that level, at 17.3 percent.

Virtually no one in the country seemed to bat an eye – certainly not many in the economically depressed black community.

A large part of the national “sleep walk” on what should be dramatically unsettling numbers for all of us, has to be attributed to the “spin” with which we get immediately bombarded as soon as sensitive economic data such as the unemployment rates are released.

In July, it was "U.S. News and World Report" that informed us that “...a rising unemployment rate is actually one of the best signs yet that the economy is bouncing back.”

Huh?

Last week, when the increased August unemployment rate was announced, President Obama said the report represented “positive news,” somehow. At the same time, a new, hotshot Wall Street economist, who coincidentally admits to being a member of the Democratic Party, was rolled out to say, right on cue, that the latest unemployment rate increase “solidifies that economic recovery is going to remain intact.”

Wow!

What will they say if the unemployment numbers actually ever do go down? Will that be a BAD sign for the economy?

At least in Europe, they seem to be willing to “call a spade a spade,” as it were. Here, so far, we’ve apparently decided, at the very highest levels of our government, to lie our way through our economic challenges, to just "make it up."

For far too many of us, however, it should be growing more and more difficult to swallow the “party line.” We see, now, that the state of the economy is having a more and more immediate impact on our own families, on whether we'll have healthcare, and whether we'll have a choice of where we want to live. We've got to start paying more attention and letting our voices be heard.

In that regard, a recent study by United for a Fair Economy has disclosed that the subprime lending crisis has resulted in the “greatest loss of wealth to blacks and Latinos in modern history,” with black borrowers, alone, having lost between $72 and $93 billion.

While we’re on the subject of wealth, according to the New York Times, white families saw dramatic growth in their financial assets – from a $22,000 median value in 1983 to $100,000 in median value in 2007, just before the onset of the “Great Recession.” By comparison, high-income black families reported median assets of just $18,000 in the same year. During that period, the Times continued, at least 25 percent of black families had absolutely no assets whatsoever to rely upon in the event of an economic crisis, such as a job loss or business failure.

All of this explains very clearly why African Americans have consistently had less money to invest in colleges for their children, in business opportunities, or in real estate. It also goes a long way to explain why, even today, blacks represent 13 percent of the U.S. population, but constitute 46 percent of public housing residents, nationwide.

On that subject, with all of the recent news about the reduction of public housing residential density over the past 20 years or so, it is clear that there has been a nationally directed and funded plan in place to reclaim what had been red-lined, significantly undervalued, predominantly black central city neighborhoods: "We'll rebuild, and we'll do it with nicer homes, but we'll end up with far fewer than ever existed before," clearly seemed to be the plan. As part of that process, upper-income whites began to sell their suburban homesteads and rush back into what had been called the inner city, in places such as Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, DC and New York City.

In the process, they drove up home prices and tax levels and made affordable properties so scarce that African Americans, in far too many cases, could no longer afford to live in the neighborhoods in which they were born and raised. Many of them were forced, by these gentrification/”neighborhood improvement" plans, to move out to the more-affordable edges of their cities and, even, into the suburbs. If you think I'm kidding, take a look at how the demographics of Philadelphia's own "Great Northeast" and the neighborhood around Temple University have changed over the past 20 years, or so.

At the same time, many newly upwardly mobile African Americans, eyes steadily fixed on achieving the “American Dream” of a fine suburban home (and, I guess, a daily 90-minute commute) also headed to the “burbs,” certainly not to the same sections of the suburbs as their lower-income, former black neighbors, but into the suburbs, nonetheless.

So there you had it: Blacks forced, or otherwise motivated, to move out of the cities, and whites, no less motivated to move back in. Their moving vans probably passed each other on many an evening, going in opposite directions, to their new homes. As an example of that very phenomenon, over the past decade, the city of Atlanta experienced the greatest growth of its white resident base of any major city in the country –- blacks moving out, whites moving in.

On that subject, did you happen to notice how close that last mayor’s race was in Maynard Jackson's old hometown? The next one, I'll go way out on a limb and predict, will be even closer.

Apparently, the upwardly mobile African Americans who were breaking their necks to move out to the "fine homes" in the suburbs across the country didn’t get the email. Most arrived just in time, over the past decade, to pay the very highest prices for the homes they purchased, just in time to pay $3.50 and $4.00 per gallon for the gas they needed for their new, daily commute, and just in time to pay exorbitant, infrastructure-related tax increases for the maintenance now required for their recently over-populated suburban communities.

What a cruel hoax!

With their mortgage balances now higher than their property values, many won’t be able to move back into the new, trendy urban centers they just left, for quite awhile. The collapse of the mortgage market and the resulting financial crisis has put an unexpected crimp in any plans they might have had in that regard.

Economies like the one we’re experiencing make it very, very difficult for African Americans who haven't been paying close attention to the fundamental shifts in our national economy and whose primary goal has been to be residentially assimilated into the mainstream.

They're learning, much to their dismay, how difficult it can be, actually, to effect that assimilation when the people with whom they want to assimilate always seem to stay one step ahead of them in the age-old game of neighborhood "musical chairs."

Somehow, it seems unfair.

I almost feel sorry for them.



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When You Understand the Airlines, You Understand the U.S. Economy

While the White House and mainstream media have had us focused so intently on the cost of healthcare, over the past year or so, the cost of virtually everything else we’re forced to buy has also grown, exponentially in many cases, far outpacing the cost of medical care.

When are we going to begin to talk honestly about the fact that healthcare costs -- as painful as they may be – are just one symptom of a much larger economic problem in our country – a badly outmoded business model under which jobs, wages and the overall economy are definitely not rising--but prices are?

I think, for me, the very last economic "straw" was hearing last week that Spirit Air, which bills itself as the “first ultra-low cost airline,” has announced that it will now begin to charge up to $45 for each piece of luggage that passengers carry onto their planes and place in an overhead bin. In my opinion, if you really want to understand what’s wrong with the U.S. economy, pay very careful attention to all that Spirit has done to gouge its own customers--not just last week, but throughout the past decade.

Under this most recent scenario, Spirit Air's customers, who were already trying mightily to avoid the previously imposed and deeply resented $15 and $25 "baggage check fees," are going to be penalized for the audacity of taking their personal belongings along on their flights, whether they check them or carry them.

It’s not as if this was Spirit’s first customer infraction. No, these were the same guys who had already been charging $2 for previously complimentary beverages during their flights, including bottled water. They’re the ones who charge “seating fees” -- $7 for a middle seat and $12 for an “aisle” or “window.”

Is it a coincidence, at all, that a published report in June 2008 indicated that Spirit had eliminated its customer service department, or that the company was fined $375,000 last September for flight overbooking, lost customer baggage and deceptive advertising?

I imagine that the executives at Spirit aren’t really “sweating” the fine. They know they'll probably make that up and more in just a few months with the new "carry on luggage" fees. If you doubt that, then you obviously haven't seen the recent disclosure that, as early as 2007, airline “checked bag fees” had generated $464 million for the carriers and that, by the first nine months of 2009, those fees had jumped to nearly $2 billion. With that kind of unchecked revenue on the horizon, how long will it take for virtually every other airline to follow Spirit's lead?

This would already be a very distasteful story, if this kind of behavior was limited only to Spirit Air, or only to the airline industry. The problem is that it just "ain’t" the airlines. At the end of the day, is there really any difference, in this insatiably greed-driven and dangerously unregulated economy, between excessive fees charged by airlines, banks, credit card issuers, cell phone or mortgage companies?

This, of course, is all being permitted to happen while the average household income has stagnated and family savings and net worth have declined. How long can we, as a nation, continue to play that game without risking serious social unrest? And, more importantly, does anyone in government seem to care?

The problem is further complicated by the fact that the federal government seems to have been engaged in economic “newspeak” in recent years, blatantly twisting, and incongruously mixing the meanings of long-standing economic terms, e.g., "jobless" and "recovery," in an apparent attempt to put a “happy face” on the misery people are actually experiencing out in the real world.

What's next, "good is bad," "peace is war?" If we fall for "jobless recovery," we'll most likely accept those old Orwellian re-definitions, too.

On the subject of joblessness, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has just reported that nationwide unemployment as of March 2010 is 9.7 percent, but that African-American unemployment is 16.5 percent, with black women at 12.4 percent, and black males at an astounding 19 percent. Despite those numbers, African Americans are still being sternly warned not to expect any black-specific job creation support, lest we embarrass the president. Seems a poor trade-off: Protecting one man's job at the expense of the well-being of millions of severely impacted black families, but, hey...

How bad is 19 percent black male unemployment? Put it this way: Greece, a country teetering on the brink of total financial collapse, reported an unemployment rate of 9.2 percent in June of last year; Iceland, whose government actually did collapse last year, due to poor management of its own economy, recently reported a 7.7 percent unemployment rate. Pakistan's unemployment rate is 15.2 percent and Iraq's is at 18 percent.

How can U.S. black male unemployment be greater than that in "developing nations" with which the U.S. is currently at war?

A much-massaged report in February that, I imagine, was designed to make us all feel better about the economy, disclosed that the U.S. “core inflation” rate was better than it was 12 months ago, moving from 1.7 percent to 1.6 percent. On the surface that sounds like a good thing until you realize that "core inflation" is arrived at by leaving items such as "food " and "energy" that might, otherwise, fairly and appropriately, increase the inflation rate, out of the calculation. Hey, maybe the government's economists, after they get promoted high enough into the administration, don't have to actually shop at supermarkets or take their own cars to gas stations, anymore, so they don't know. That would explain it, wouldn't it?

By the way, the Consumer Price Index tells us that energy, alone, increased by 17.1 percent over the 12 months ended February, 2010; transportation, which includes the cost of gas, increased 13.8 percent; education increased by 4.5 percent and medical care by 3.3 percent.

Oh, and while we’re on this subject, let's not overlook the continuing extraordinary disparity between the pay scales of company CEOs and their average employee. In 1970, the average U.S. CEO’s compensation package was about 25 times that of the average production worker. By the year 2000, CEO compensation had climbed to an average $2.2 million, about 90 times the average worker’s pay and by 2004, CEO compensation was 500 times that of the average worker.

Is there any wonder why there is growing anxiety and anger among average Americans about the state of the U.S. economy and their role in it?

A recent report on the faltering U.S. economy by the Rockefeller Foundation informs us that, while most Americans are suffering in this "low pay/high cost" environment, the effects on women are especially painful. The report concludes, not unexpectedly, that women, especially women of color, are more worried, in this economy, about paying bills, losing jobs, providing for children and saving for retirement. While 26 percent of white women told the researchers that they have “had trouble paying bills" in this economy, that number grew to 42 percent for Hispanic women and 48 percent for African-American women.

As I mentioned earlier, we can readily understand just how volatile and dangerous the economy has become for Americans--and for black folks, specifically--by watching the business practices in industries such as the airlines.

Recently, for example, Continental Airlines surprisingly seemed to leave just a little something on the table for its customers when it announced that, in one more "cost-cutting" move, the carrier will now only offer food on intercontinental flights and, on certain international flights. Veteran airline-watchers were initially just a bit comforted when Continental added that it would continue to provide food on domestic flights longer than six hours. That concession seemed to be a bit customer-friendly, they thought.

But, just when they wanted to believe that Continental was at least retaining a small, soft spot in its numbers-crunching, corporate heart for cross-country fliers, they learned from United Airlines that a flight from L.A. to Philadelphia lasts just five hours and seven minutes. It appears that air travelers are going to have to fly a bit farther than coast-to-coast, if they want to be served food on a domestic Continental flight.

Sadly, it's becoming clearer every day that we're living in an economy under which the average consumer just can't win--and nobody seems to care.

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Poll: Whites and Blacks Respond Very Similarly to Unemployment.

Back when he was still telling jokes for a living, long-time activist Dick Gregory made a most insightful comment: “How can people say that Columbus “discovered” America, when there were already people living here when he arrived?"

Once people stopped laughing at what they thought had been a joke, it began to sink in that, for people of color-- like the Delawares, Mohawks, Algonquins, Hurons, and Mashantuckets – who were already living here at the time – their reality didn’t really matter unless the Europeans said it did.

As I reflect upon the recent “discovery” of the national “unemployment crisis,” I see great similarities between the experience of the indigenous Americans and the way that black Americans, who have had a long experience with double-digit unemployment, have been virtually ignored by those who do the hiring in America, by the government, itself, and in the mainstream media's new obsession with unemployment rates higher than 10 percent.

Suddenly, after the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced in October that the overall unemployment rate in America had officially moved into “double digits,” at 10.2 percent, fighting unemployment became an urgent necessity – and a long overdue political priority.

Overnight, as if some huge switch had been finally thrown, conditions that have long caused pain and suffering for black Americans and that have impeded our ability to achieve, are being covered intensely by the media--but it is becoming increasingly clear that this recent activity is intended for the "newly unemployed," and no one--especially not the "first black president"--seems interested, in the least, in talking about how any of this might directly affect black people.

This is especially disappointing because, on November 4, 2008, the day that Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, black unemployment already stood firmly in double-digit territory, at 11.3 percent. By January 20, 2009, the day the "first black president" was inaugurated, black unemployment had jumped to 12.6 percent. On April 1, the black unemployment rate reached 15 percent and at the end of November, black unemployment had climbed, again, to15.6 percent, and to a shocking 29 percent for black males between the ages of 18 and 24.

This lingering, race-specific joblessness has led to deplorable living conditions, extraordinary high levels of poverty, poor health outcomes and inferior educational opportunities for many in the national black community. However, the current Administration in Washington, D.C. and most of the mainstream media have been content, up to this point, to write off the unemployment-related problems in our community as some kind of unfortunate, community-wide character flaw on the part of black men and women.

Regrettably, when asked about the country's comparatively high rates of black unemployment and comparatively low rates of contract participation by black businesses, the president uses the opportunity to lecture black folks about their moral shortcomings, including a perceived lack of commitment to their families, their reliance on government support and the "poor" job they do in serving as role models for their children. I'm sure that right-wing conservatives are absolutely delighted to hear this message each time Mr. Obama recites it, despite their continuing single-minded opposition to virtually everything else he reads to them during his many speeches.

But, lo and behold....now, it seems that there is evidence that the negative issues that result from unemployment are not peculiar to black people, after all.

Indeed, a recent New York Times/CBS News poll of 708 unemployed workers has made it very clear, now, that even white Americans will exhibit the same kinds of socially negative behaviors so commonly attributed to black folks, if they, too, are faced with unemployment.
As one Times reporter wrote: “More than half of the nation's unemployed workers had borrowed money from friends or relatives since losing their jobs” and, “An equal number have cut back on doctor visits or medical treatments because they are out of work.”

No kidding. Did the New York Times and CBS News actually have to pay a research firm to learn that stuff?

Borrowing money? Cutting back on doctor visits or medical treatments? That sounds familiar, but, I don't remember very many New York Times polls that were focused, in years past, on black double-digit unemployment, so it's hard to prove, statistically.

Another very familiar thing that has come out of the Times’ “unemployed workers poll” is the researchers' findings that joblessness has "wreaked financial and emotional havoc on the lives of many of those out of work, causing major life changes, mental issues and trouble maintaining even basic necessities.” Many respondents cited their increasing difficulty in paying bills and about 20 percent said they have begun to receive food from nonprofit or religious organizations.

The researchers also found that almost half of those surveyed said: “Unemployment had led to more conflicts or arguments with family and friends.” (When these conditions have occurred in African-American households, blacks have been called irresponsible, lazy and irrational). In the Times story, the point was emphasized by a 51-year-old woman of European descent named Colleen Klemm, from North Lake, Wisconsin, who recently lost her job and disclosed: “All your relationships are touched by it. You’re never your normal happy-go-lucky person. Your countenance, your self-esteem goes.”

Hey, Colleen, welcome to the world that far too many black people have lived in since their families moved off the plantations nearly 150 years ago, in search of work for which they would actually be paid. What Colleen and others like her are beginning to experience in North Lake, Wisconsin, is what I and many others knew as “everyday life” in North Central Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, West Philadelphia, Harlem, Newark, South Central LA and hundreds of other predominantly black communities where jobs have always been scarce.

The survey went on to disclose a number of other “not-very-surprising-to-black-people” effects of unemployment, including evictions, foreclosure notices and the need to cut back on necessities as well as luxuries. Respondents also said they were beginning to experience unemployment-related negative behaviors in their children, the need to "save quarters for diapers," and a tendency among unemployed males to "feel ashamed most of the time.”

But there was one section of the report that reminded me, once again, that even in 2009, blacks and whites tend to respond to trauma in much different ways.

Nearly half of the New York Times/CBS survey respondents said they felt embarrassed or ashamed most of the time, or sometimes, because they were out of work. Almost half of the same respondents confided that they are now – as a result of their unemployment – suffering from depression or anxiety, and one fourth of those people said they had gone to see a mental health professional to address the problem. One woman reported that she began to use her Medicaid benefits to see a therapist for depression, every week.

Here, generally, is where black folks have drawn the line, as we’ve fought to address chronic and rising unemployment: Given our experience in this unfairly structured economy, black folks do recognize that what’s happened to them isn’t really caused by psychological failures on their part. To their great credit, they do pretty much understand that being unemployed and having to do without all the things they may want, doesn’t mean they have to begin seeing a therapist.

What African Americans do need, we thoroughly understand, is access to good jobs. If we can simply have that, and a relatively level playing field, we’ll take care of all those other issues on our own.

You know, we really could have explained all of this, and how unemployment really affects families, to the New York Times and CBS News--- for free.

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Two Suspicions:The Dow Jones Average and the Jobless Recovery

You know, it was really interesting to see all the stories last week about the Dow Jones Average reaching the "magical" 10,000-point level, and how that meant that the "Great Recession" was probably already behind us. If black people could quote South Carolina's infamously disrespectful Congressman Joe Wilson, they'd say that was a "lie."

In January, the Obama administration announced that the country needed a "stimulus plan" to boost the U.S. economy and to ensure that the national unemployment rate would remain below 8 percent.

The idea, I imagine, was that an 8 percent unemployment rate would be such a frightening prospect that the Congress and the American people would do almost anything to avoid it -- including passing and accepting a $787 billion "stimulus bill."


I describe that whole scenario as "interesting" for two reasons: First, I no longer believe, at all, that the "Dow Jones Average" has any valid connection, whatsoever, to the true condition of the U.S. economy. Secondly, after a year of virtually no meaningful black participation in the Stimulus Program, we black folks seem to have become a little too comfortable with our ongoing status as "second-class economic citizens," for my taste.

We clearly feel the disproportionate economic pain in our households, and the substantially higher unemployment rates for our community, and yet, we seem to quietly accept it all, and seem content to wait for economic inclusion to "trickle down" to our level.

That's tragic.

The fact is that, even as the president and his advisors were proposing the "Stimulus Bill," black unemployment already stood at 11.9 percent. Indeed, black unemployment actually reached and surpassed the 8 percent point, climbing to 8.3 percent--twice the national white unemployment rate--as early as 2007.

And now, here we are, nine months after having been economically "stimulated," with a national black unemployment rate that has climbed above 15 percent, as compared to about 9 percent for white Americans.

As early as 2005, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the median black household earned only 60.2 percent of the median white household, .7 percent lower than in 1995. Even worse, the poorest 20 percent of black households earned just 43 percent of the wages earned by the poorest 20 percent of white families (Wow, even poor white people are rich by black standards).

In the midst of all of this negative economic news for black people, the Dow Jones Average's climb to 10,000 was presented, last week, as a signal that all is right, again, with the U.S. economy -- even though there were still 15.1 million unemployed Americans, even though those people were staying out of work longer. After all, the news accounts carefully explained, "jobs are a lagging indicator" and the economy ALWAYS recovers before jobs come back. That was usually the part of the story when they would bring up, again, the concept of a "jobless recovery" -- as if such a thing could be possible, at all.


With the "10,000+ Dow" as justification, the Los Angeles Times reports, J.P. Morgan has allocated $21.8 billion for "bonuses and other compensation," for its employees and managers, including almost $354,000 for every one of the 24,828 employees in its investment banking division.

As if that's not outrageous enough, Goldman Sachs, another investment firm, is preparing to pay more than $770,000 in bonuses to each of its 30,000 employees.

Let me remind you that while all of this is going on, mortgage foreclosures have hit record levels; the FDIC, the agency that is supposed to guarantee the safety of your bank deposits, has announced that it expects to be operating "in the red," at least until 2012; more than 100 commercial banks have already failed in 2009 and the U.S is seriously "in hock" to the Chinese government.

As I implied earlier on, I'm also growing increasingly suspicious of the activities, composition and accuracy of the entire Dow Jones Industrial Average. The "Dow Jones," along with the Wall Street Journal, has been owned, since 2007, by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., the same media company that also owns the FOX Cable News Channel and the rabble-rousing tabloid, The New York Post. It's fair, I think, to check very carefully the motives and accuracy of that entire group, given the reputation of its ownership.

It's not that the Dow Jones wasn't originally conceived to serve a valid purpose back in 1884, when Charles Dow and Edward Jones developed the concept. It was intended to be an index, or a microcosm, of the entire stock market, based on a sampling of companies that would represent a cross-section of the nation's major businesses. There were 11 railroad and industrial stocks included in the original index. Now, there are 30 companies, all hand-picked by the editors of the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal.

Curiously, today, no matter how poorly the overall economy seems to be doing--jobs, housing starts, consumer spending, foreclosure rates, unemployment levels, U.S. exports, federal, state and local deficits-- the only true and acceptable measure of the country's economic well-being, we are led to believe, is whether or not the Dow Jones Industrial Average has moved up or down during the day.

Even casual observers, however, have recently been surprised to see, on days when virtually every one of those factors has been negative, the Dow Jones Average show an uptick -- no apparent reason, no logical basis, but an improvement, nevertheless.

That's a great deal of influence and power for a single economic indicator -- especially one that is owned and operated by the same people who bring you Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and the "Tea Parties."

If the Dow Jones Industrial Average is so fundamentally important to our overall economy, explain to me, please, why, less than two months ago, Murdoch, himself, let it be known that he might very well be interested in selling it, and that his company had retained Goldman Sachs, the same guys who are about to give $770,000 bonuses to nearly 30,000 of their favorite employees and managers, to identify likely purchasers and to handle the transaction.

Here's another thing that raises my suspicion: With "the Dow" just having completed, since March, its most rapid seven-month increase in value since the 1930's, why is it that, over the past nine months, the "smart money" people on Wall Street, according to the Bloomberg Report, moved $254.6 billion into bonds, and only $14.5 billion into the hands of stock managers?

But, perhaps, this is the most worrisome thing of all to consider: Can we be absolutely sure, in a market characterized by unethical and illegal business practices, by excessively high fees, usurious interest rate levels and astoundingly high executive salaries and bonuses, that the Dow Jones Average, itself, is not being manipulated?

It's an unsettling thought, but one we simply have to consider -- whether we are a black factory worker in Philadelphia trying to restore the value in his or her 401-k or the President of the United States, in Washington, D.C., trying to restore domestic and international confidence in the U.S. economy.

And, finally, seriously, how can we ever have a true economic recovery without creating new jobs? Without jobs, people can’t buy cars, houses, clothing or anything else that used to drive the U.S. economy. Without jobs, it’s hard to imagine people qualifying for the bank loans that the Obama administration keeps saying we need.

The great hypocrisy is that all of the high-powered economists and all of the president’s advisors clearly understand that. They also understand that our country's current business model includes absolutely no incentive to businesses to increase human resource-related expenses. Until that happens, jobs will not be created, especially by the companies that are “too big to fail”and that are currently laying people off in droves.

Instead, we'll continue hearing the empty jargon of the "jobless recovery," from people who clearly know better but don’t have the “guts” to make the systemic changes the country needs to place a real priority on job creation. In the meantime, there will continue to be ongoing free access to “the vault” by the captains of the financial services industry, and even more economic marginalization for the nation's underclass and black people.

Dear Mr. President, please, say it ain't so.


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Time to Control Our Own Economy (2/27/2009)

Now that we've elected the City's third black mayor and the nation's first black president, it's time to take the new, annual "What Have You Personally Done to Move Black Folks Forward Test."

I made it up myself.

Following on the heels of Black History Month, this is a brief exercise to help us do two things: One, to really explore whether the 470,000 African Americans who are aged 18 and over in our city actually support the black community economically, and, two, to give a jolt to the concept of black self-reliance, even as we continue to hold all manner of elected officials accountable for the jobs we so graciously have given them.

As you know, we've got "issues" in our community and no matter how long we have patiently waited, they seem not to be going away any time soon.For example, here we are, 390 years after the first African slaves were transported to Jamestown, Virginia by English entrepreneurs to harvest their new tobacco crop.Here we are, 299 years after New York passed a law that made it illegal for blacks, Indians, and mulattoes to walk at night without a lantern. Here we are, 234 years after the slave population in the American colonies had grown to 500,000 Africans (1:1 free whites to slaves in Virginia; 1:2 free whites to slaves in South Carolina).Here we are, more than 230 years after the establishment of the first Abolition Society in Philadelphia. Here we are, 233 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence and 220 years after the signing of the U. S. Constitution.

It's now been 46 years since the "March on Washington." And, don't look now, but it's been 44 years since the passage of the Voting Rights Act.It's been 39 years since Earl Graves published the first issue of Black Enterprise Magazine. And, if numbers could be directly translated into power, wouldn't we now be strong and influential? After all, blacks constitute about 45 percent of Philadelphia's population. We also own 15.8 percent of the City's overall number of businesses (about 10,500).On a national level, we now claim more than 9,000 black elected officials, and, finally, black annual spending power is now estimated by the University of Georgia at $847 billion dollars.

With all of those numbers and all of that potential economic muscle, why is it that black folks are still disproportionately living in poverty (23.9% nationwide and about 30% in Philadelphia), disproportionately unemployed (at least twice as high for blacks as for whites)? Why is it that we have substantially lower family net worth levels (about $5,988 for blacks versus $88,561 for whites)? And why, 146 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, do black businesses nationwide constitute just 5 percent of all U.S. businesses, and why do those same businesses generate just .4 percent of the nation's gross business receipts?Remember, we're about 13 percent of the national population and our 1.2 million black businesses pull in just .4 percent of the dollars spent on an annual basis in this country.

What's that about?

Here's a clue: It's our own fault.

Let me say that again, "Kings and Queens", brothers and sisters and black business and professional people, wherever you are. It's our own fault. I would be absolutely the last person on earth to deny the lingering impact of slavery, racism and discrimination on our families, but all of that notwithstanding, this is something we can control and we simply don't.

How is it that blacks brag about having an annual spending power of $847 billion and yet our own black businesses take in less than $89 billion per year? That sorry statistic indicates that, even if every single dime taken in by the nation's 1.2 million black firms represented money spent by blacks, themselves (and we know that's not true), then black business gross receipts only represent 10.5 percent of the total amount spent each year in this country by black people. Obviously, the truth is much worse than that.If we recognize, in 21st Century America that small businesses have been the largest contributors to job growth over at least the past 20 years, and that about 85 percent of the employees in black firms tend to be, themselves, black, then we must also certainly realize that we, ourselves, have been, and continue to be, major contributors to black unemployment, black poverty, the poor quality of black housing and the generally poor condition of black neighborhoods, when we don't spend money with black businesses, or patronize black banks.What do we have to do to get this, finally, through our own thick, black heads?

While it has become very fashionable, of late, to criticize the lack of performance or underperformance of some black elected officials, or to blame poor quality urban schools or, even, the high black incarceration rate, for our lack of progress, the ongoing, peculiar, self-defeating lack of support for our own businesses is a crisis that, arguably, affects us at an even greater rate than "sub-prime lending" ever did.So what are we going to do about it?It's simple, we can start including black-owned businesses as part of our normal, personal purchasing patterns.

None of this, of course, is meant to be discriminatory on our part. This isn't some "nationalist, red, black and green throwback strategy." This is simply the way in which virtually every other racial or ethnic group in this country has amassed wealth, gained control of their own communities and earned political influence.It's time now for us to get off of our "kiesters" and support our own businesses. There is no room or time for excuses in this matter. It's already too late, the economic condition is already too dire.Like everything else, the only way to grow our black economy and to support black businesses is, simply, to support black businesses. It's not complicated.

To get started, just ask yourselves these few questions (and this is where the test comes in):1. Do you have a list of black businesses that you patronize on a regular basis?2. Do you establish a "goal" for yourself for weekly, monthly, and annual spending with black businesses? Hey, if we want the city, state and federal government and the private sector to set "minority purchasing goals,” why shouldn't we do the same thing on a personal level?3. If you happen to be a black business owner, what percentage of your company's vendors, themselves, are black?4. What ethnicity is your doctor, your lawyer, or your accountant?
5. At your home, are your plumber, painter, roofer and electrician African-American contractors?

That's the test.At the end of the day, this is where I come out: if you are not participating in your own "buy black" program, you are a part of the problem, period. No matter how "black" you talk, no matter how "black" you outwardly appear to be, you are a part of our community's economic problem.So, let's do for ourselves, now, what Hispanic, Asian, Italian, Irish and Jewish consumers have done for their own communities, for years.And, after we've done all of these things, it would then, be okay, and even advisable, for us to run right back to holding Mayor Nutter, Governor Rendall, and President Barack Obama accountable. But until then, as you can see, we've all got work to do ourselves.

What are we waiting for?

By the way, hope you had a great Black History Month!

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Only the Uninformed Blame Blacks for Wall Street's Financial Crisis

It’s getting increasingly more difficult for me to sit and listen to supposedly knowledgeable people as they try to blame the entire Wall Street financial crisis on black people and their "mishandling" of subprime mortgages. Sometimes the uninformed "experts" can be heard irresponsibly “running their mouths” on network and cable news shows; sometimes they even have the temerity to present their unsubstantiated claims “live and in color.” Almost always, their faulty logic in this matter goes unchallenged and they’re allowed to move right along with the rest of their presentation as if it really could be possible that black people, the most consistently marginalized players in the history of the U.S. economy, actually have the capacity to do unilateral, structural damage to America’s financial centers.

Just this past week, for example, I attended a presentation by an influential local business group, here in town, and the opening speaker, in attempting to explain how the Wall Street financial crisis began, said that one of the primary problems for the U.S. economy was that bankers and mortgage lenders had mistakenly stopped the practice of “red-lining,” in recent years, which led to unqualified minority borrowers receiving mortgage loans, to the detriment of the entire economy.

Seriously... that’s what he said.

He went on to say that when the nation’s banks began making loans in previously “red-lined” communities (i.e., minority neighborhoods), they set off a series of financial occurrences that led to the current crisis.

When historians look back on the 2008 U.S. financial crisis, they will undoubtedly have much to say about mortgage foreclosures, the decline of the U.S. auto industry, the failure of the five largest investment banks, the loss of 401(K) and pension funds, run-away unemployment, “off-shoring” of jobs and the so-called $700 billion “Bail-out."
What they won't discuss very much, as they tend not to do, even now, is how the pattern of unrelenting greed drove bankers, mortgage lenders, and consumer finance companies to create residential and consumer credit agreements that were so blatantly abusive that they “killed the golden goose" of the consumer-driven, credit-based economy in this country.

The new mortgage agreements now had to include “adjustable rates,” with interest payments that would increase, over time, making them more and more appealing to lenders and investors, but impossible to repay for a significant percentage of borrowers – black or white. Here’s how bad it is: According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, nine percent of the nation’s home owners are either behind in their mortgage payments, or in foreclosure. The biggest scam running is the one that tries to present the banks as having been involved in a grand social experiment to improve access to home ownership by minorities. According to Saara Nifici of the Neighborhood Economic Advocacy Project of New York, lenders who structured abusive high-interest, adjustable rate loans targeted those loans disproportionately to black and Hispanic borrowers.
In fact, the city of Baltimore has gone so far as to file a federal law suit against Wells Fargo Bank, accusing the institution of intentionally selling high- interest-rate, unfairly priced mortgages, more to blacks, regardless of their credit rating, than to whites, an outright violation of federal law.

According to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, in 2007, 41 percent of blacks earning more than $100,000 a year were steered into a subprime mortgage, as compared to just seven percent of whites in the same income category.
Another blatant example of how even middle class blacks were targeted by greedy, unscrupulous lenders is what happened in Prince George’s County, a predominantly black, middle- and upper-middle income suburb of Washington DC. About 43 percent of Prince George's County residents, who refinanced their homes in 2005, received high-cost loans, as compared to 24 percent of homeowners in other parts of the region. Even in the most affluent parts of Prince George's County, 34 percent of homeowners who bought or refinanced a home received high-interest loans in 2005, compared with 4.5 percent of residents in majority-white Northwest Washington, where residents have virtually the same income levels.

Subprime mortgages carry an interest rate that is typically 300 basis points higher than market rate mortgages. Here's the short version of how it happens: Lenders make more money when they classify a borrower – regardless of income or credit history – as “subprime” and so, in pursuit of the greatest possible yield on their mortgages, they placed unsuspecting blacks in subprime categories, forcing them to pay substantially more than similarly educated, similarly employed whites – right up to the point when the adjustable rates in their mortgage agreements rose so high they could no longer afford to pay. As a direct result of these tactics, today, Prince George's County has the highest foreclosure rate in the state of Maryland. This has occurred despite the fact that a 2005 study by a credit rating agency found that residents of the county had credit scores that were, on average, higher than the state average and that Maryland's average credit scores ranked higher than the national average.

Despite all of that, the terrible truth, if anyone on Wall Street, in the mainstream media, or in Washington DC really wants to know, is that the four states in the country with the highest foreclosure rates are Nevada (7.9 percent black population), California (6.7 black population), Florida (15.8 percent), and Arizona (3.8 percent black population). In fact, Utah, which ranks ninth among the 50 states with the highest state foreclosure rates, has just a one percent black population.

It appears that despite aggressive steering of blacks into high-cost and subprime mortgage packages, the black community has had less impact on the current mortgage debacle than mainstream real estate speculators. Accordingly, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported, in June 2007, that the national foreclosure rate would have been well below the average of the last ten years if not for “special circumstances” in Florida and several other states. The Association went on to conclude that “...foreclosures in Florida, Nevada, California, and Arizona (the four states in the country with the highest concentration of foreclosures), are heavily influences by speculators who are walking away from properties, now that home prices are starting to fall." In the same report, the Association pointed out that Nevada has the highest share of investor-owned defaults, followed by Arizona, Florida, and California. Maybe I'm crazy, but, with all of this information, it sure looks like a "stretch" to try to pin the blame for the deterioration of the U.S economy on black folks, even if many of them actually were "tricked" into subprime loan agreements, regardless of their income or credit standing,

Even as we begin to isolate the factors that actually contributed most directly to the mortgage crisis, we still have not factored in what may be, potentially, an even greater negative impact on the national economy, i.e., the looming specter of the $2.6 trillion in increasingly delinquent, also abusively structured, U.S. consumer debt, which dwarfs the $1.3 trillion of outstanding subprime mortgages.

All of these issues were, of course, supposed to be managed by the "best and brightest" minds on Wall Street and in the commercial banking industry. And, up to now, most of us actually believed that those people were smart enough to ensure that nothing would go terribly wrong.

I don't know about you, but I began to get a little nervous about their ability to figure all of this out when I heard them try to blame all of the country's current economic problems on black people.

Seems like they could have come up with a better story.


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The Connection Between Crime and Economics: "10,000 Men Rally"

(As an invited speaker at Philadelphia’s “10,000 Men Rally,” on October 21, I delivered most of the following remarks, during the program.

I’ve reproduced the entire presentation here, for those who did not have the opportunity to hear it, in its entirety, last weekend).

I understand that the purpose of today’s rally is to generate support from black men to assist in restoring order in our own neighborhoods.

While this rally is committed to dealing with the immediate and current symptoms of our problems- - the crime, the violence, the broken families, the jail terms- - we also understand that, at some point, we will have to begin to address the “root causes” of our problems, and we know, deep down inside, that more police, more security and neighborhood patrols are not the true, long- term solution. What we should also know is that no other race of people, no other ethnic group or religious group in this country, has ever gained respect, neighborhood stability, or true political influence without first building its own internal economy.

We have been in this country for nearly 400 years, and in Philadelphia for nearly 325 years, and we still haven’t taken care of that critically important issue. Of course, our ability to create and control our economy has been complicated and delayed by a little thing called slavery, but, at this late date, that’s an unacceptable excuse. Since we’ve been here, for example, the Irish have come here poor, created an economic base and moved themselves up. The Jews have come here poor, created an economic base and moved themselves up. The Italians have come here poor, created an economic base and moved themselves up, and now it’s the Asians and Hispanics who are doing the same thing. And where are we? Standing on the sidelines, being pushed out of our neighborhoods, being eliminated from a workforce that we don’t control, shopping at stores we don’t own, living in houses that we didn’t get paid to build, voting for the Democrats, and waiting, far too patiently, for our turn.

But that is not how it works in the United States. If you don’t have economic control, you don’t get the quality of education your children deserve. You don’t get to decide when your community will rise above the poverty level and you don’t get access to and support from elected officials, even when you vote for them.

How bad is it? Where’s the evidence that we haven’t done our economic homework?

The Census Bureau tells us that in the United States, the median income of black households is $30,200. At the same time, the average Hispanic median household income is $34,241, the average white household is $48,800 and the average Asian median household income is $57,518.

In addition, about 25% of blacks live below the poverty level, versus 21.9% for Hispanics, 8.6% for whites and 9.8% for Asians.

No wonder our neighborhoods are more run-down, no wonder our houses are worth less, no wonder we can’t qualify for bank loans and credit cards as readily as whites, Asians and Hispanics.

When you look at the demographic profile of Philadelphia, you see a city comprised of 1.4 million people, 45.4% of whom are black, 39.6% of whom are white, about 10% Hispanic and 5% Asian.

With all of that as background, here are a couple of important observations… The first is from the Washington Times Newspaper, September 3, 2007. The quote is this: “Where there are large numbers of young men living in situations of economic inequality and lack of opportunity, the gun and crime, in general, is a way out and seen as the only avenue.

“The highest levels of armed violence in the United States is in medium-sized cities such as Gary, Indiana. One of the reasons is that many of these cities are struggling socioeconomically.”

The second observation comes from South Africa, where indigenous Africans are economically marginalized such that there is a 57% poverty rate, and where the annual murder rate has just climbed to 19,200 persons. In that country, Dr. Johan Burger, an analyst for the Institute of Security Studies in Pretoria, acknowledging that South Africa already exceeds international norms for the number of police officers needed for its population, has said, “The nation needs to reduce the vast gap between the wealthy and the jobless underclass that has little hope of climbing out of poverty, except by crime.”

If there is a connection between unemployment, poverty and crime, then Philadelphia can be the national poster child. The City has the highest poverty rate of any of the country’s 10 largest cities and 50% of its African-American males are unemployed.

While nearly 16% of its businesses are black-owned, those businesses have struggled and have been virtually shut out of meaningful contract participation from either the private sector or the public sector in the City. The lack of support for the City’s black businesses, by both large corporate Philadelphia and by the City administration has sharply reduced the employment opportunities that should have been available over the years through African-American-owned businesses. After all, the U.S. Census Bureau tells us that 85% of the employees at a so-called minority-owned business are, themselves, minorities. There’s no quicker or better way to create jobs for black people than to help black-owned businesses to prosper.

In the Philadelphia area construction industry, wherein $16 billion is spent each year, African-American-owned construction companies receive about .8% of the total revenue. At the same time, the skilled trades unions continue to work systematically to keep black workers and businesses out of their membership and off construction worksites. And, as we have seen recently, when a few black construction workers and contractors do find their way to the worksite, they’re experiencing, as black hoist operator Paul Solomon did on October 1, a work environment wherein a white construction worker can shake a hangman’s noose in a black worker’s face and tell him “I feel like hanging somebody.” That’s entirely unacceptable and the kind of issue that has kept us out of our own economy.

There is a clear and absolute connection between poverty, unemployment and crime. It is estimated that there are currently more than 250,000 Philadelphians, including a substantial number of African Americans, who have been involved in the criminal justice system. That is understandable when you recognize that blacks are eight times more likely than whites to be incarcerated for the same non-violent crime.

And when you realize that most job classifications in this City are still closed to ex-offenders, you have no trouble understanding why we have such a high, black unemployment rate and why 67% of ex-offenders are re-arrested within 36 months of their release.

I could go on, but this is not about me talking, it is about you, and all of us, having enough information to start doing something about the crushing economic issues that breed crime in our community.

The black community’s economic problems have led us to desperation; that desperation has driven too many of us to give up hope, to lose confidence in education, to disrespect our own families and community, and to commit petty crimes and crimes of violence. All of that, of course, has to stop, or coming here today will have been a colossal waste of time.

I hope that we all understand that, once we finish with this first phase of the “10,000 Men” effort, we will absolutely have to develop an economic agenda that would include, among other things,

• Starting more businesses in our community.
• Supporting black businesses that already exist so that they can thrive and hire more people from our own neighborhoods. There is evidence that we still spend only $.07 out of every one of our dollars in black-owned businesses. That, too, is a crime.
• Getting very serious about making sure that the black community receives its fair share
  of City contracts, both from government and mainstream businesses.
• Organizing to ensure that we finally have our appropriate level of inclusion
  and respect in the local construction industry. We’re already doing some of that
  through the Technical Assistance Center for Emerging Contractors and other
  organizations, but there is so much more we need to do, so many more of our
  black contractors that we need to identify and put into the “mix.”
• Supporting only elected officials who support the black community’s economic
  agenda. That’s what other ethnic groups and special interest groups have always
  done. What’s taking us so long to figure that one out?
• Organizing inside our own families to raise capital, to start businesses and build family job
  opportunities.
• Educating our community to recognize that any time anything is built, moved, painted, torn down, wired or illuminated, somebody is getting paid and, if we are not involved in it, that means it is absolutely not us. That too has to stop. People from other communities make all the money that there is to be made in their own neighborhoods and then the make all the money that there is to be made in our neighborhoods. Now that we understand the importance of economics, we don’t just want new, affordable housing, we also want to build the new affordable housing, and earn the salaries on the work site and turn the profit, just like other groups do every day.
• Working with your elected officials and holding them accountable to create political and economic leverage on projects that will be located in our communities. Watch closely and learn from what the people in Pennypack are doing with Sugarhouse Casino and what the
  people in South Philadelphia are doing on Columbus Boulevard with Foxwoods. Even people in the city who believe the casinos will eventually bring broad, citywide economic benefits to Philadelphia, have had to respect the fact that those people do have neighborhood leverage, that they know how to use it, and that their neighbors and their neighbors’ children will benefit economically because of their actions. When are we going to get that focused on the economic picture?
  

On that same general subject, I want to be sure to point out that Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell has the right idea with her position on the Barnes relocation. That’s the kind of politics you should support. It may not be popular with the editorial boards at mainstream newspapers, but it does make sense for the economic growth of our community. We need more elected officials who are thinking and acting like Jannie Blackwell in situations like that.

Here’s the bottom line: The indisputable fact is that unless Philadelphia begins to include its 45% black population as normal participants in its workforce and job creation efforts, the City’s overall economy will continue to stagnate.

This is not an either/or; this is not a luxury. It is simply a fact. This City can’t move any further economically than its black residents are prepared to go.

And if 10,000 men get behind our economic issues like the residents of South Philadelphia got behind blocking the Foxwoods Casino, we should have absolutely no problem.

It's up to us.

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Economics and Crime:Connecting the Dots

I love it when powerful people finally begin to connect the dots.

I read last week that 17 mayors from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware gathered at Philadelphia's Constitution Center to get a handle on how they might more effectively address the issue of violent crime in their respective cities.

Guess what they "discovered" about Philadelphia...

An Inquirer reporter covering the event pointed out that "...criminologists and police say Philadelphia's problems include the fact that a large part of its African-American population lives in isolated pockets of poverty. Philadelphia's unemployment rate, at 12 percent, is 4 percentage points higher than New York's. Its high school dropout rate, for certain categories of minority students, can exceed 50 percent. The result is a growing population of largely poor, dangerously idle youth with no stake in peaceful prosperity. Add the easy availability of semi-automatic weapons and lethality is a foregone conclusion..."

That's what the Inquirer reported.

The only issue I took with the reporter's story is that, according to "The Social and Economic Isolation of Urban African Americans"(2005), "...in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles-Long Beach, New Orleans and St. Louis, only about one-half of African-American males were employed." The same study indicated that African Americans in six cities, including Philadelphia, were twice as likely to be part of the poverty population relative to their percentage of the total poulation in their areas. It went on to cite an African-American poverty rate in Metro Philadelphia at 42 percent.

What disturbs me even more than the media's continuing under-representation of the black economic condition, in Philadelphia and other large cities, is the hypocracy of the mayors of those cities.These elected officials are purportedly responsible, among other things, for ensuring that blacks and other minorities have at least equal access to public sector employment and contracts in their cities but, in too many cases, they find that part of their job description politically unappealing, so they simply don't do it. As a result, they wind up contributing directly to the creation of the conditions that lead to economic desparation, property crimes and acts of violence in their own cities.

For example, here in Philadelphia, how can a city administration that has virtually never "lifted a finger" to ensure minority economic inclusion feign surprise that the city has a nationally significant poverty level and that thousands of young people no longer believe that the city offers them anything that makes going to school worth their while?

What happens when you have a functional 50 percent unemployment rate in a major city? Pretty much the same thing that happened nationwide when the U.S. experienced the so-called "Great Depression." (By the way, the peak unemployment rate then was just over 26 percent but even that was enough to cause good, God-fearing, people from across the country to rob banks, commit other property crimes at previously unprecedented levels and fill up the nation's prisons).

I don't know what happened in the other 16 cities that sent their mayors to the Constitution Center last week, but I'm absolutely convinced that we, in Philadelphia, are now simply reaping the bitter harvest of ignoring the legitimate economic needs of the majority of our city's population for far too many years.

Impose 50 percent unemployment levels and some of the nation's worst poverty rates on the currently upscale residents of Rittenhouse Square and Chestnut Hill and, I guarantee, similar anti-social behavior patterns will break out, even in those places.

I've been invited by City Controller Alan Butkovitz to provide testimony at his public hearings on the severe, ongoing, dysfunction at Philadelphia's Minority Business Enterprise Council(MBEC), on April 12.

I can't wait...and I hope, once the Controller's hearings are completed, that some powerful people in the city finally begin to connect the dots between Philadelphia's continuing, race-based, economic discrimination patterns and the propensity to commit crime.

Hey, it's never too late.


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