Guest Post by Larry Elder (a black man)
Ninety-five percent of black voters in 2008 voted for then-Sen. Barack Obama. Surely a “progressive” black president would care about, empathize with and understand black America in a way no other president ever has or could, right? Exit polls from Pew Research show that 63 percent of all voters — and 65 percent of Obama voters — cited the economy as the number one reason they voted for him. Iraq was a distant second at 10 percent. Even for black Obama voters, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
After six years, the report card is in. The grades are not pretty. By every key economic measurement, blacks are worse off under Obama. In some cases, far worse off.
What about poverty? In 2009, when Obama took office, the black poverty rate was 25.8 percent. As of 2014, according to Pew Research Center, the black poverty rate was 27.2 percent.
What about income? CNN Money says, “Minority households’ median income fell 9 percent between 2010 and 2013, compared to a drop of only 1 percent for whites.” The Financial Times wrote last October: “Since 2009, median non-white household income has dropped by almost a 10th to $33,000 a year, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s survey of consumer finances. As a whole, median incomes fell by 5 percent. But by the more telling measure of net wealth — assets minus liabilities — the numbers offer a more troubling story.”
What about net worth and the black-white “wealth gap”? The Financial Times said: “The median non-white family today has a net worth of just $18,100 — almost a fifth lower than it was when Mr. Obama took office. White median wealth, on the other hand, has inched up by 1 percent to $142,000. In 2009, white households were seven times richer than their black counterparts. That gap is now eightfold. Both in relative and absolute terms, blacks are doing worse under Mr. Obama.” Remember, these numbers apply to all “non-whites.” For blacks, it’s worse.
When looking only at “black net worth” — which is lower compared to non-whites as a whole — white households are actually 13 times wealthier than black households. From 2010 to 2013, according to the Federal Reserve, white household median wealth increased a modest 2.4 percent, while Hispanic families’ wealth declined 14 percent, to $13,700. But blacks’ net worth fell from $16,600 to $11,000. This is an astonishing three-year drop of 34 percent. Investors Business Daily put it this way, “That’s a steeper decline than occurred from 2007 to 2010, when blacks’ net worth fell 13.5 percent.” The black/white “wealth-gap” has reached a 25-year high.
What about unemployment? In 2009, black unemployment was 12.7 percent, and by 2014, it had fallen to 10.1 percent. This sounds like good news until one examines the black labor force participation rate — the percentage of blacks working or seeking work. It’s the lowest since these numbers have been recorded.
In a report for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, economist Dean Baker writes, “The drop in labor force participation was sharpest for African Americans, who saw a decline of 0.3 percentage points to 60.2 percent, the lowest rate since December of 1977. The rate for African American men fell 0.7 percentage points to 65.6 percent, the lowest on record. The decline in labor force participation was associated with a drop in the overall African American unemployment rate of 0.5 percentage points to 11.9, and a drop of 0.6 percentage points to 11.6 percent for African-American men.” Not good.
What about home ownership? According to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, the picture is ugly: “Millions of homeowners, particularly in minority and high-poverty neighborhoods, are still underwater on their mortgages, while millions more renters have been forced to live in housing they cannot afford or is structurally inadequate. And with the ongoing growth in low-income households, housing assistance reaches a shrinking share of those in need. … Homeownership rates have fallen six percentage points among black households — double that among white households. … More than 25 percent of mortgage homeowners in both high-poverty and minority neighborhoods were underwater — owing more than their homes are now worth — in 2013. This rate is nearly twice the shares in either white or low-poverty neighborhoods.”
The chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., in 2011, complained about the economic plight of Black America. He said, “If (former President) Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House.” He repeated the statement 12 months later, when black unemployment stood at 14.1 percent: “As the chair of the Black Caucus, I’ve got to tell you, we are always hesitant to criticize the President. With 14 percent (black) unemployment, if we had a white president we’d be marching around the White House.” Rep. Cleaver should start marching because, to use his own words, the problems have not been addressed.
But, hey, the Confederate battle flag is down.
The author is right. I saw hillary preaching at some black Baptiat church yesterday in the ghetto and looked at the folks in the audience just eating up her BS about how every kid deserves a great education. After the show the congreagation went back to their ghetto where they always have been and hillary jumped on her plane back to the beltway, probably laughing all the way as to how she once again bamboozled the blacks into believing her with her grandiose “proposals”. The minister of the church raised not a peep or dared ask her why the congragation continues to be on welfare and food stamps and why there are no jobs. How shameful how the black ministry has been bought off by hillary and her ilk.
I always found it ironic that black people would vote for a person just because of their color even if it were not in there best interests. I could care less about the Presidents color or gender, just so long as they are looking out for the best interests of the country. They seem to be hard to come by these days.
Blacks will be losing traction at an even greater rate as the cities and the government find the need to reduce payroll as their bloated costs become unaffordable, since blacks tend to be hired at a much greater rate within the government.
Bob.
Well, black folks are worse off under Obama, but it’s still white folks’ fault. I mean, way more white folks showed up to campaign for him than black folks, way more white folks voted for him than black folks, there are way more white folks in the US than black folks. Oh, and Obama is half white his own self.
With that much white blood, he got to be a punk. White folks made Obama fuck up the way he did.
Just own up to it, y’all: Obama is all y’all’s fault. Buncha rayciss ass crackas.
“We live in a topsy-turvy world. Although blacks may be worse off under Obama, they certainly know how to work the benefits.”
And deal drugs.
I remember news clips when Obama was first elected black people were dancing in the streets saying, “Now we are goina get ours.”
I guess they got it good n hard.
Funny how I hear blacks that are working at the hospitals and SNF’s that I have pts at complain about “Trump’s Wall” as racist.
Obama’s pro illegal immigrant stance has allowed millions of unskilled laborers into the country to A) drive down wages of jobs like roofing, dry walling, landscaping, etc B) increase the labor pool and job competition for non college required jobs, C) putting added strain and reducing available resources for social services programs, job training and scholarships for low income persons—and yet most blacks seem to be bamboozled into parroting the pro-immigrant mantra.
This only furthers my belief in just the simple stupidity of most of the people of certain races. Support the party that enslaves you, relegates you to ghettos with sub par education and living conditions. Promotes the destruction of your families and inserts the govt as the patriarch and providers for your children–and then they turn around and rabidly support their oppressors? Befuddling……….
We got to stop thinking in terms of Black America, Hispanic America, or White America and start thinking America. We are one and our problems cross racial and ethnic boundaries. We need to address the most pressing problem we face and that is the Orwellian control of our economy by the central government and the bankers. That’s the raging forest fire consuming everything in its path. Instead, we waste our time on small brush fires in the Black and Hispanic communities while ignoring the growing, ever bigger, danger to everyone.
The meager amount of money doled out to the Black and Hispanic communities by the Elite is done to assuage their guilt after having raped the economy for all its worth. If you don’t give them a bare subsistence, they think, the natives may become restless and a revolution might be forth coming.
So Black leaders need to move beyond their egocentric thinking and join others in a movement that rights the wrongs that afflict us all. Blacks and Hispanics are not alone in their suffering.
javelin–Mass immigration of low skilled works have hurt the Black and Legal Hispanic communities the most. Low skilled illegal immigration has displaced entry level jobs that would ordinary been filled with Blacks and legal Hispanics.
The problem is compounded by the migration of corporations fleeing the restrictive requirements of an overly regulated economy here in America. Jobs matter.
Programs like Obama Care force higher skilled workers in to lower skilled job with reduced hours of productivity. This forces lower skilled workers out of the work force making it impossible to survive without the ‘dole’ and resorting to crime.
You want to fix the crime in impoverished communities, fix the jobs.
You want to fix the jobs, fix the regulations.
You want to fix the regulations, fix the government.
You want to fix the problems, start at the top.
Harpy speaks at a Black church and the Media says nothing; crickets. I asked a local church if I could pass out yard signs in a dirt lot across the street on some afternoon and I was met with gasps that it would violate the law. I asked if it would violate the First Amendment but nobody knew what that was; but hadn’t I ever heard of the separation of church and state? Some guy wore a KKK shirt to a Trump speech and the Media acted like all of Trump’s supporters must be Brown Shirt Nazis; it didn’t help that Trump raised his hand (which showed he was a Hitler and David Duke devotee). Then David Duke was asked if he supported Trump and he said yes! A double kiss of Death! Then Trump refused to apologize for anything. The SPLC, JDL, ADL, CIA, FBI, DHS, etc no doubt put him on their Terrorist Enemies and No Fly Lists! To be fair and balanced, Fox Media should ask all the candidates if they ever were a KKK Racist, or a Black Racist (ie, an Affirmative Action Reverse Discrimination Quotas Supporter or an Anti-Fourteenth Amendment Racist) or a Nazi, Fascist, Anarchist or Communist (Democrat) sympathizer.
The next time somebody says there is a separation of Church and State, I’m going to ask if there is a Law requiring the separation of Church and Intelligence?
Sounds like justice to me. They voted for him and stated they will not have to pay their mortgage and other bills anymore and they were right. They didn’t realize they will not have to pay because they would be foreclosed on.
rhs jr–Your Black church comment reminded me of a movie called “Sounder” with Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfields jr. A group of Black folks were walking past a ‘white’ church in the deep South and Paul Windfields jr remarks to the group that he went into a ‘white’ church by mistake during services. He said. “Lord why did you allow me to go into that ‘white’ church?” The others in the group said. “What did the Lord say?” Paul Windfields jr. said, “The Lord said, You are doing better than me, I’ve been trying to get in there for 200 yrs.”
There’s not that much different, between Black and White. We have more in common than we have in differences.
Blacks have the genetically lowest IQ of all the races which increases their propensity to violence, disabling them from living and benefiting from White Society.
They call themselves “African Americans” so ship them back to their old lands in Africa and let them go stupid over there, as they have for thousands of years. You’ll see our crime rate go down 1000%.
I believe the CIA and Obama was behind cities being looted by blacks,now black lives matter.Now Holder came out last year and said blacks are never to be disciplined in school as new policy.