Even a small drop in the percentage and number of black votes in the traditional must-win states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia that Obama won in 2008, could spell potential disaster for him this time around. Romney will take every opportunity to shove the notion down the throats of black voters that Obama’s alleged failures on the economy have directly resulted in mounting economic misery in poor black communities. 

President Obama's jobs plan centers on: 1) putting millions of people directly back to work to rebuild America’s tattered infrastructure and 2) providing money to states to rehire over 450,000 teachers.  If the Republicans had enacted the president’s employment legislation when he proposed it in 2011, rather than declaring it dead-on-arrival, the economy could have churned out 227,000 jobs last month rather than the anemic 69,000. This is the point that Obama was making when he tripped over himself on June 8: Americans need quick action on jobs.

The real wedge issue in the election will be Obama himself. This campaign will be more explicitly racialized than the last one. In spite of the economic difficulties that Blacks face – an unemployment rate almost twice the norm - Blacks nevertheless feel better about the economy than Whites. This is simply racial solidarity. There is still a great deal of support for Obama in the African-American community. Even people who are critical, in the end, say he’s doing the best he can.

From New America Media and the Investigative Reporting Workshop: Some call this moment the Great Recession. As the hardship has lingered, others have begun calling it the Little Depression. But equating the hard times of the 1930s with the hard times of today is mostly overblown rhetoric. Or is it?

New America Media and Investigative Reporting Workshop: Young and old in mud-caked shoes marched toward the Capitol last Thursday calling for jobs and economic fairness. The marchers have convened in Washington from across the country, camping on Washington’s National Mall by day and sleeping in local churches by night. They are part of an effort backed by Our DC, a grassroots advocacy group focused on good jobs for District residents.

 From New America Media and FinalCall.com:  On the streets of the nation’s capital, random downtown workers were asked, “Would America be better if the distribution of wealth was more equal?” A majority, 60 percent, of Americans said society would be better off, according to the 2011 American Values Survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute.



 

From New America Media: As the economy continues to flounder, a growing number of college graduates are shifting their priorities away from forging a career path in their desired field to more immediate demands, such as paying the bills.  As a result, many are taking jobs out of college that they never imagined themselves doing and are finding that once they’ve taken that turn, it isn’t so easy to find their way back.

Thanks to two economic recessions (2000, 2008), two company restructures, and a terrorist attack, I’ve been unemployed a total of four times, for a total of nearly six years.  Want to know the mental state of the unemployed? Let me be your guide though this particularly pot-holed landscape…