8379: High Poverty, High Unemployment.

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

Obama urged to bring jobs to high-poverty areas.

By Ben Evans

WASHINGTON — The top-ranking African-American in Congress called on President Obama on Friday to sharpen his focus on hard-hit minority communities in his plans for bolstering the economy.

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said the recession has devastated communities of color, leaving them with extraordinarily high unemployment rates.

He said previous government recovery programs have left minorities behind and called on Obama to broadly incorporate a so-called “10-20-30” policy directing at least 10 percent of any recovery efforts into communities with 20 percent poverty rates for 30 years.

“I believe that something of this order needs to be done across the board as we go forward,” Clyburn said in a press conference accompanying the release of a minority economic report from the Center for American Progress, a liberal advocacy group.

Clyburn’s comments came just days before Obama delivers his annual State of the Union address and as the president unveiled a restructured presidential advisory board — with corporate leadership — to focus on creating jobs.

Obama named GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt as the head of a new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

“It seems today that already a recovery is taking place. It is showing up in the investor community but it is not showing up in communities of color,” said Clyburn, the third-ranking House Democrat. “We’re going to see people saying, ‘We’re back,’ and these communities will be in deeper trouble than before.”

Obama has supported the 10-20-30 formula in the past, after lawmakers added it to the rural development section of the 2009 stimulus package.

:::

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

Report paints a bleak picture for minorities

A report from the Center for American Progress released Friday emphasized that minorities have struggled through the recession far more than whites.

UNEMPLOYMENT: Unemployment stands at nearly 16 percent among blacks vs. about 9 percent for whites and 13 percent for Latinos. “These structural differences in unemployment rates by race and ethnicity meant that communities of color fell into a deeper hole in terms of economic security during the recession and that communities of color will need to see much stronger growth than is the case for whites to climb back out of this hole,” the report’s authors wrote. “Communities of color are in more desperate need of policy attention to jobs, wages, and benefits than whites to just recover the losses they suffered during the recession since they experienced sharper economic security losses.”

PAY GAP: As of the third quarter of 2010, the last period for which the authors had data, African Americans’ usual median weekly earnings were $623 in 2009 dollars; Latinos earned $532. In comparison, whites made $774 each week, while Asians earned $871, they said.

POVERTY: In 2009, 25.3 percent of Latino families and 25. 8 percent of African-American families lived below the poverty line, the report said. Poverty rates were 9.4 percent among white Americans and 12.5 percent among Asian Americans.

HOMEOWNERSHIP: Nearly 75 percent of whites own homes, compared with 45 percent of blacks and 47 percent of Latinos.

HEALTH CARE: In 2009, 12.0 percent of white Americans lacked health insurance, compared with 21 percent of African Americans; 32.4 percent of Latinos, and 17.2 percent of Asian Americans.