The Coca-Cola Company invested $128 million in US community empowerment programs, contributed $59 billion to the US economy, and supported 860,000 US jobs. Not sure if the latter figure includes White House staffers assigned to servicing President Donald J. Trump’s Diet Coke button.
Looks like The Coca-Cola Company is trying to counter its performative pro-DEIBA+ promotion—which might have triggered the political wrath of President Donald J. Trump—by presenting itself as a major contributor to the US economy.
Trump, in turn, can spur the economy by pushing his Diet Coke button.
Advertising Age published a long and laborious report on the perceived “Booming Freelance Economy”—and later announced U.S. advertising employment fell in January 2022. Well, sure, the stories are related, as job losses will spike self-employed numbers. Yet labeling the scenario as booming is misleading. More bodies desperately seeking gigs ultimately drives down standard payments and day rates, which have shifted to hourly wages doled out for actual time worked.
On the flipside, operating remotely has blurred the boundaries between professional and personal, where all employees are expected to be on call and online 24/7. In short, the free agent environment is not booming—it’s dooming.
Most outrageous is that the first Ad Age piece spotlighted increased marketing and promotions from talent platforms and staffing companies. That is, the enterprises gouging jobless people are profiting—while perpetuating the underrepresentation of minorities in Adland. For marginalized groups, glooming is looming, blooming and zooming.
Booming Freelance Economy Fuels Ad Battle Among Job Search Brands
Fiverr, Upwork and CareerBuilder are flooding social media and TV with new advertising
By Adrianne Pasquarelli
January is traditionally a period of career change, as workers evaluate their current jobs and often begin searches for new employment. This year, amid a continuing “Great Resignation” and pandemic-induced demand for more worker flexibility and career fulfillment, job changes are occurring at a breakneck pace. The transitions are fueling demand for talent platforms and staffing companies such as Fiverr and Upwork, which are dialing up their marketing to seize on the trend.
“There has been a growing interest in flexible work from both companies and individuals, and the pandemic has accelerated that in all sorts of ways,” said Barry Asin, president of Staffing Industry Analysts, which covers labor market trends. “We just did this giant experiment in flexible and remote work and companies that were previously resistant to that have realized that it actually works and it’s opening up a whole new labor market.”
Companies including freelance talent marketplaces such as Fiverr and Upwork, and traditional recruiting sites like CareerBuilder, are flooding TV and social media with new advertising as they try to capture a piece of growing demand. Upwork recently hired Melissa Waters, formerly global VP of marketing at Instagram, as chief marketing officer as it boosts its ad cred. Fiverr, fresh on the heels of its first Super Bowl spot last year, has been on an acquisition spree that includes last year’s purchase of Working Not Working, which connects freelancers in creative jobs to potential employers.
Even business-to-consumer marketplaces such as home services site Thumbtack, which connects homeowners with contractors, are investing in marketing with the recent hire of Amanda Reierson as head of marketing. She came from Farmers Insurance, where she was involved with digital marketing.
“These marketplaces are popping up because people are in a one-click-world. And marketplaces, from a digital perspective, enable more of that one-click-world by making things like a pro available for hire without having to talk to someone,” said Reierson, who is planning significant headcount growth for her marketing team. “That’s the root of why a lot of these marketplaces have popped up because now we have the digital technology to match people with whatever product or service you need.”
Growing gig economy
Both workers and employers are responding—and the so-called “gig economy,” worth $1.3 trillion in the U.S., is exploding. In 2020 talent platforms grew 25% year-over-year in gross spend volume, compared with 20% growth in 2019, according to Staffing Industry Analysts. It found that large organizations are using such platforms as resources now more than ever, with 22% of big employers using such sites in 2021 compared with only 14% in 2020. Talent platform sites like Upwork and Fiverr are not nearly as large as traditional temporary staffing firms, representing just 3% of the $392 billion global staffing industry. But the platform startups are growing and could reach $15.1 billion in gross revenue this year, SIA found.
“These guys are spending a lot of money on marketing—there’s a network effect and they want to be the winners of that networking effect. They’re willing to spend advertising dollars to make sure they’re the biggest,” said Asin.
The pandemic shifted career requirements for many workers, who began to place a premium on location flexibility and shifting hours rather than things like foosball or free beer. A survey last year from Working Not Working, called “Adland Careers Now and in the Future,” found that over 50% of creatives want to switch career paths.
“It used to be people who got laid off were the only ones freelancing, but that totally changed,” said Justin Gignac, co-founder, noting that COVID “added an incentive of people going ‘Hey, what do I want to do with my life, what are my priorities, what am I willing to tolerate with a job?’ The things that people were attracted to before—the jig is up. All that stuff that used to be the perks are not the perks anymore.”
Moving beyond word-of-mouth marketing
In the past, Working Not Working, which counts brands such as Apple, Google and Airbnb as its top clients, has primarily relied on word-of-mouth to grow its platform to 1,000 high-level creatives, ready for roles including anime directors, photographers and illustrators. Employers pay an annual or monthly membership fee to access Working Not Working’s pool of talent. Yet this year the company is focused on expanding its talent pool, and that means doing marketing for the first time, Gignac said. It will run its first marketing campaign, a short film that will run on digital channels such as YouTube.
“We were whispering about our brand for so long—now we have the opportunities and we feel an obligation,” said Gignac.
Waters left Instagram for Upwork earlier this month because she saw a chance to grow the 20-year-old brand beyond its low awareness at a time when talent marketplaces are all the rage. Upwork, which has a robust in-house team that works with outside agencies, debuted a national campaign in November. A series of films, “The Perfect Fit” campaign focused on how Upwork can solve talent gaps for businesses. It’s the latest in what Waters expects to be a heavy marketing investment this year—particularly at a time when revenue is also growing. In its most recent quarter, Upwork reported a 32% rise in revenue to $128.1 million.
“We will be leaning into marketing,” she said, noting that Upwork is rolling out new product lines as well. “Because we have single-digit awareness, we have such an opportunity—so much headroom to grow not only how much people think about us and consider us, but also for people who know and love us to be able to introduce them to our portfolio of products.”
Fiverr, a public company that started in Israel, has continued to pour more into marketing since going mainstream last year with its first Super Bowl ad. While the company isn’t planning a 2022 game day spot, it is “investing significantly” in marketing such as TV, according to Duncan Bird, VP of brand marketing and digital.
The 2021 Super Bowl spot positioned Fiverr as a resource for small businesses by playfully referencing the Four Seasons Total Landscaping company used in Rudy Giuliani’s infamous press conference during the 2020 presidential election aftermath. The ad “exceeded expectations,” Bird said, especially because Fiverr ran a social media campaign in conjunction with the Big Game spot. It followed that ad with a campaign called “Something From Nothing,” which shows how people can follow their dreams into reality. This month it is expanding that campaign into out-of-home advertising, including digital ads and hand-painted ads in New York City. Fiverr is also experimenting with influencer marketing and podcasts.
“We are always trying to experiment with our marketing and make sure we are learning—that is one of our great skills as a company, that we don’t just find something and keep repeating it,” said Bird, noting that the majority of marketing is done internally. “We want to be the poster child for this is the way to work.”
So far, the strategy is paying off. Fiverr reported third-quarter revenue of $74.3 million, a 42% increase over the year-earlier period. The company reports fourth-quarter earnings in February.
Getting creative
Traditional online job listing sites like CareerBuilder are also trying to remain top of mind with fresh marketing that taps into the new mindset of job seekers. The brand recently ran a campaign called “Let’s Job it Up” designed to recruit around the “Great Resignation.” It was the first marketing push in at least two years, according to CMO Kristin Kelley. She said all of the job movement has put a strain on talent acquisition organizations to build awareness. Now, CareerBuilder has to be more creative with job descriptions, adding video and using TikTok and other social media to market the brand. The company is tapping Instagram influencers, like a female truck driver, and using ploys like contests as well as QR codes in cinema ads. Later this quarter, the company plans to roll out a new initiative called Colab, where candidates who are not on LinkedIn can network and get resume guidance.
“The job of a place like CareerBuilder is a mathematical equation—we have to keep awareness levels high because candidates aren’t exclusive to any job board, they will apply to the jobs served in front of them,” said Kelley. “It’s incredibly important that CareerBuilder be seen,” she added, noting that “we are maximizing the avenues around us to get the word out.”
Of course, the marketing blitz may be short-lived. That’s because experts expect an eventual shakeout as some marketplaces gain ground over others. In addition, rising advertising costs could result in a pullback by some brands that will be unable to invest as heavily in customer acquisition.
“In 2020, the cost to advertise went down quite a bit and talent platforms were very opportunistic on that and invested heavily to drive brand awareness—a lot of enterprises were simply unaware of what talent platforms are and that has been a huge driver of growth,” said Brian Wallins, research manager at Staffing Industry Analysts. “I expect that to subside to some degree because the cost is bouncing back up.”
Minorities Fall Further Behind Whites in Wealth During Economic Recovery
By Tanzina Vega
The wealth gap between minorities and whites has continued to increase in the midst of the economic recovery, according to a report by the Pew Research Center that was released Friday.
According to the report, which analyzed data from the Survey of Consumer Finances from the Federal Reserve, the median net worth of white households in 2013 was $141,900, about 13 times that of black households at $11,000.
In 2007, when the recession began in the United States, the median net worth of white households was $192,500, or 10 times that of black households at $19,200.
For Hispanics the numbers are similar, albeit slightly higher, than those for blacks. In 2007, the median net worth of a Hispanic household was $23,600, and in 2013 it was $13,700.
“The gaps are big, and they are also persistent,” said Rakesh Kochhar, the associate director for research at Pew’s Hispanic Trends Project and one of the report’s authors. In the last 30 years, net worth for white American households has hovered around $100,000, or six to eight times as high as net worth for blacks, Mr. Kochhar said.
The survey has been conducted every three years since 1983, with the largest wealth gap between blacks and whites recorded in 1989. That year, the median net worth of white households was 17 times as large as that of black households and 14 times that of Hispanic households.
Wealth is defined as the value of an accumulated sum of assets that could include income, financial products like stocks and bonds, retirement accounts or real estate subtracted from the debt that is owed against those assets. It is built up over time and tends to increase with age, Mr. Kochhar said. This in part explains the widening racial gap, because blacks tend to earn less than whites and have less assets than whites do to pass on to future generations.
According to the Federal Reserve data, the median income of minority households fell 9 percent from 2010 to 2013, compared with 1 percent for whites. Homeownership, also a factor in the creation of wealth, fell 6.5 percent for minority households from 2010 to 2013, compared with 2 percent for whites.
A “legacy of discrimination,” including lower levels of education and depressed property values in certain minority communities, has played a role in the widening wealth gap, Mr. Kochhar said.
A slight increase in net worth of Hispanics over blacks can partly be explained by geography, he said. Hispanics are more concentrated in states with higher home values like California, New York and Florida; blacks may own homes in Southern states with lower home values.
While all American households have lower assets, the decrease has been more significant among minority households, the report said.
The Hispanic population is also likelier to be younger and likelier to be immigrants, who often take 20 to 30 years to settle into a new country before beginning to accumulate wealth, Mr. Kochhar said.
The New York Post reported at least 116 Sears and Kmart stores will be closed—many during the holiday season—liquidating at least 6,000 jobs. Must be a lot of employees shitting their pants right now, including the Teflon-coated hacks at FCB Chicago responsible for some of the worst advertising in the brands’ histories.
Sears to close stores, lay off workers during holidays: report
By James Covert
Eddie Lampert is preparing to deliver more lumps of coal this Christmas — more than 6,000 of them.
The billionaire chairman of Sears Holdings is preparing to close at least 116 Sears and Kmart stores, many of them during the holiday season, in a liquidation that could cost 6,067 jobs, Seeking Alpha reported.
Sears shares rose 4.5 percent Thursday on the news to close at $35.95.
Sears disputed the accuracy of the report, but didn’t provide any numbers on store closures and layoffs, saying it would do so when it reports quarterly results next month.
“Make no mistake, we believe the store will continue to play an integral role in our transformation,” Sears said in a statement. “However, if a store is not generating a profit, it is straightforward that the store should be considered for closure.”
Seeking Alpha’s report cited notices of liquidation sales sent out last month that signaled the closure of 55 Kmart stores, 30 Sears department stores and 31 Sears Auto Centers.
The stores includes two Kmart locations in New Jersey — Paramus and Randolph — where liquidation operations have already begun.
RadioShack to close nearly 1,100 stores
By James Covert
They’re starting to switch off the lights at RadioShack.
The cash-strapped electronics chain said it’s looking to shutter as many as 1,100 stores, more than a fifth of its locations nationwide, after disclosing a full-year loss that swelled to $400 million.
Fourth-quarter results, which got slammed by a 20-percent revenue drop, “were much worse than we anticipated, and cast serious doubt on RadioShack’s long-term viability in our opinion,” BB&T Capital Markets analyst Anthony Chukumba said.
RadioShack, which lately got attention for Super Bowl ads that featured throwback characters from the ’80s including Hulk Hogan, Mary Lou Retton and sitcom alien ALF, saw its shares slide 17 percent on the news, closing at $2.25.
The stock has been stuck below the $5 range for more than a year and a half as the debt-laden retailer has struggled to right its business.
Industry experts say RadioShack has been hit especially hard by the rise of Web retailers such as Amazon. That’s because the latter are better equipped to carry a wide selection of the gadgets, parts and accessories that had been RadioShack’s bread and butter for decades.
I think that the business is irrelevant,” said David Tawil of Maglan Capital, a New York investment firm. “I don’t see a vision on the future of the business.”
In a Tuesday conference call with analysts, CEO Joe Magnacca made it clear that the company believes that its chain of 5,200 stores is simply too big.
“Within five miles of my home, I have eight RadioShack locations,” said Magnacca, a former Walgreen exec hired last year to help resuscitate the retailer.
Nevertheless, insiders say the company’s plan to close stores has sparked friction with the company’s lenders, which in some cases have taken RadioShack’s leases as collateral.
“After a quarter like this, it’s going to be an uphill battle convincing the banks that exiting stores is a safe bet,” according to one industry source.
On Tuesday’s conference call, RadioShack execs fielded analysts’ questions about the company’s liquidity after it disclosed that some suppliers have demanded letters of credit in exchange for deliveries of fresh merchandise.
For the fourth quarter, RadioShack’s loss widened to $190.4 million — three times the size of its year-earlier loss — as its margins got squeezed by stiff price competition.
Some of the wounds were self-inflicted, execs admitted, as RadioShack discounted some items that were already selling briskly and failed to order adequate stocks of other hot sellers.
Sagging demand for mobile phones has been a nagging problem in recent seasons for electronics retailers industrywide. Still, RadioShack seems to have been hit harder than most, according to Tawil of Maglan Capital.
Alex Bogusky continues his metamorphosis from adman to social and political activist with the Million American Jobs Project. The YouTube posting states the following:
Economics isn’t all that complicated. We can create a million new American jobs this year by simply looking for the Made In America label. If each of us takes a tiny fraction of the money we’re already spending and buys US-made goods, we’ll create [an] economic tidal wave. Watch the video, and then share it with at least two people. Boom, you just helped make a million new jobs.
Not convinced Bogusky is qualified to declare “economics isn’t all that complicated.” His plan to create American jobs requires eliminating overseas jobs, which could hurt U.S. companies that outsource labor. Other potential negative results include higher prices and lower consumer interest. And let’s not forget the already-underpaid foreign workers, who will likely be thrown into poverty upon losing their jobs. To top it off, Bogusky seems half-hearted himself with the proposition; that is, he’s only suggesting increasing your American-made purchases by 5 percent—so you can keep your Nikes and Apple products. Heaven forbid multimillionaire Bogusky might find the courage and commitment to emulate John and Maggie Anderson, who sought to jump-start the economy in 2009 by exclusively supporting Black-owned businesses for an entire year.
Additionally, how will the new positions be distributed? Based on Bogusky’s cluelessness regarding the dearth of diversity in the advertising industry, don’t expect any non-Whites to benefit from the Million American Jobs Project. Sadly, Bogusky has never realized diversity isn’t all that complicated.
Do Illegal Immigrants Actually Hurt the U.S. Economy?
By Adam Davidson
Earlier this month I met Pedro Chan at his small apartment above an evangelical church in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood. Chan, who shares the place with three others, is short and muscular. He has a quiet voice and a patient demeanor that seems to have served him well on his journey to New York. In 2002, he left his Guatemalan village for a long trip through Mexico and, with the help of a smuggler, across the Texas border. In 2004, he made it to Brooklyn, where his uncle helped him find work on small construction crews.
These days, Chan helps skilled (and fully documented) carpenters, electricians and stucco installers do their jobs by carrying heavy things and cleaning the work site. For this, he earns up to $25,000 a year, which is considerably less than the average entry wage for New York City’s 100,000 or so documented construction workers. Chan’s boss, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that unless he learned a specialized skill, Chan would never be able to move up the income ladder. As long as there are thousands of undocumented workers competing for low-end jobs, salaries are more likely to fall than to rise.
As Congress debates the contours of immigration reform, many arguments have been made on economic grounds. Undocumented workers, some suggest, undercut wages and take jobs that would otherwise go to Americans. Worse, the argument goes, many use social programs, like hospitals and schools, that cost taxpayers and add to our $16 trillion national debt. Would deporting Pedro Chan and the other 11 million or so undocumented workers mean more jobs, lower taxes and a stronger economy?
Illegal immigration does have some undeniably negative economic effects. Similarly skilled native-born workers are faced with a choice of either accepting lower pay or not working in the field at all. Labor economists have concluded that undocumented workers have lowered the wages of U.S. adults without a high-school diploma — 25 million of them — by anywhere between 0.4 to 7.4 percent.
The impact on everyone else, though, is surprisingly positive. Giovanni Peri, an economist at the University of California, Davis, has written a series of influential papers comparing the labor markets in states with high immigration levels to those with low ones. He concluded that undocumented workers do not compete with skilled laborers — instead, they complement them. Economies, as Adam Smith argued in “Wealth of Nations,” work best when workers become specialized and divide up tasks among themselves. Pedro Chan’s ability to take care of routine tasks on a work site allows carpenters and electricians to focus on what they do best. In states with more undocumented immigrants, Peri said, skilled workers made more money and worked more hours; the economy’s productivity grew. From 1990 to 2007, undocumented workers increased legal workers’ pay in complementary jobs by up to 10 percent.
I saw this in action when Chan took me to his current work site, a two-story office building on Coney Island Avenue. The skilled workers had already installed wood flooring in a lawyer’s office and were off to the next job site. That left Chan to clean up the debris and to install a new toilet. As I looked around, I could see how we were on one end of an economic chain reaction. Chan’s boss no longer had to pay a highly skilled worker to perform basic tasks. That lowered the overall cost of construction, increasing the number of jobs the company could book, which meant more customers and more money. It reminded me of how so many restaurants operate. Without undocumented labor performing routine tasks, meals, which factor labor costs into the price, would be more expensive. There would also be fewer jobs for waiters and chefs.
Earlier that day, I was reminded of another seldom-discussed fact about immigrant life in the United States. Immigrants spend most of the money they make. Chan had broken down his monthly expenses: $400 a month in rent, another $30 or so for gas, electric and Internet. He sends some money home and tries to save a few thousand a year in his Citibank account, but he ends up spending more than $10,000 annually. That includes the $1,400 or so he pays the I.R.S. so that he can have a taxpayer I.D. number, which allows him to have a credit score so that he can rent an apartment or lease a car.
There are many ways to debate immigration, but when it comes to economics, there isn’t much of a debate at all. Nearly all economists, of all political persuasions, agree that immigrants — those here legally or not — benefit the overall economy. “That is not controversial,” Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told me. Shierholz also said that “there is a consensus that, on average, the incomes of families in this country are increased by a small, but clearly positive amount, because of immigration.”
The benefit multiplies over the long haul. As the baby boomers retire, the post-boom generation’s burden to finance their retirement is greatly alleviated by undocumented immigrants. Stephen Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration, told me that undocumented workers contribute about $15 billion a year to Social Security through payroll taxes. They only take out $1 billion (very few undocumented workers are eligible to receive benefits). Over the years, undocumented workers have contributed up to $300 billion, or nearly 10 percent, of the $2.7 trillion Social Security Trust Fund.
The problem, though, is that undocumented workers are not evenly distributed. In areas like southern Texas and Arizona and even parts of Brooklyn, undocumented immigrants impose a substantial net cost to local and state governments, Shierholz says. Immigrants use public assistance, medical care and schools. Some immigrant neighborhoods have particularly high crime rates. Jared Bernstein, a fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, told me that these are also areas in which low-educated workers are most likely to face stiff competition from immigrants. It’s no wonder why so much political furor comes from these regions.
Undocumented workers represent a classic economic challenge with a fairly straightforward solution. Immigrants bring diffuse and hard-to-see benefits to average Americans while imposing more tangible costs on a few, Shierholz says. The dollar value of the benefits far outweigh the costs, so the government could just transfer extra funds to those local populations that need more help. One common proposal would grant amnesty to undocumented workers, which would create a sudden increase in tax payments. Simultaneously, the federal government could apply a percentage of those increased revenues to local governments.
But that, of course, seems politically improbable. Immigration is one of many problems — like another economic no-brainer: eliminating farm subsidies — in which broad economic benefits battle against a smaller, concentrated cost in one area. As immigration reform seems more likely than at any time in recent memory, it’s important to remember that it is not the economic realities that have changed. It’s the political ones.
Adam Davidson is co-founder of NPR’s “Planet Money,” a podcast and blog.
Walmart pledges a job to every honorably discharged veteran
The plan was met with approval by First Lady Michelle Obama and recruiters who place vets in jobs. But former Walmart employees think the minimum wage, part-time work won't help vets get on their feet.
By Victoria Cavaliere / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Retail giant Walmart pledged Tuesday to hire any returning military veteran that wants a job with the company.
Walmart U.S. CEO Bill Simon told a retail conference in New York City the company expects to hire 100,000 veterans over the next five years, one of the largest-ever hiring commitments of former military personnel.
“We believe Walmart is already the largest private employer of veterans in the country, and we want to hire more,” Simon said. “Hiring a veteran can be one of the best decisions any of us can make…Veterans have a record of performance under pressure. They’re quick leaders and they're team players.”
Starting Memorial Day, Walmart will offer a position to any honorably discharged veteran in his or her first 12 months off of active duty. Most of these jobs will be in Walmart stores and Sam’s Clubs, and some will be in distribution centers or the home office.
The announcement was met enthusiastically by employment agencies that place veterans in jobs.
“We’re ecstatic,” said Ron Rutherford, business development manager at the career site TAonline. “The commitment is like an open hand willing to assist any veteran who wants to work.”
The plan has also gotten a warm reception in Washington, where first lady Michelle Obama said it “a groundbreaking example for the private sector to follow.”
But Walmart’s deep roster of critics say the jobs will do little to help returning military members get on their feet financially. “The jobs will be part time, 28 hours a week” said Bronx resident and Army veteran Edgar Lucas.
Lucas, who worked for a Walmart in Kentucky, called the plan a “scheme.”
“Anything that’s not 40 hours, I don’t know how it’s going to help these veterans,” he said.
A group of protesters lined up outside the Javits Center in Manhattan Tuesday as Simon gave his speech, accusing the nation’s largest private employer of unfair work practices and of keeping employees short of 40 hour work weeks to avoid paying benefits.
“Walmart is the driving force that fuels underemployment in the county,” said Yana Walton, a spokeswoman for the advocacy group the Retail Action Project. “These aren’t the kinds of jobs for folks returning home, or for Americans,” she said.
The hiring push could generate millions in tax breaks for Walmart — employers can get tax credits of as much as $9,600 for hiring a veteran, depending on certain criteria, under a U.S. tax provision extended through 2013.
Walmart’s announcement Tuesday also included a pledge to spend an additional $50 billion on U.S.-made products over the next 10 years.
“I know according to urban legend Walmart’s shelves are filled with foreign products,” Simon said. "But the truth may surprise you.”
Black voters want Obama to focus on jobs
By David Jackson
President Obama’s coalition came through for him big time on Election Day, and now members of the coalition want him to return the favor.
African-Americans, who backed the nation’s first African-American president with 93% of their votes, are calling on Obama to pursue new jobs programs and make sure that budget cuts do not fall too heavily on middle- and lower-class Americans.
“I think the president heard us loud and clear,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, reports the Associated Press. “The collective message was, ‘let’s build on where we already are.’”
While the national unemployment rate came in at 7.9% for the month of October, that number for African-Americans was 14.3%; black unemployment has been as high as 16.5% during the Obama presidency.
In winning re-election over Republican opponent Mitt Romney, Obama also relied heavily on the votes of women and Hispanics.
From the Associated Press:
“Blacks made up 13 percent of the electorate this year, about the same as 2008, while participation among whites shrank slightly to 72 percent and Hispanics increased to 10 percent, national exit polls showed. …
“African-American voter samples in national exit polls are not useful for providing turnout measurements. Census surveys and other analyses eventually will provide turnout numbers for specific racial groups. But exit polls can be used to examine different groups as shares of the overall vote. And there, experts say, is where the evidence can be found of how much black voters delivered for Obama.
“Nationally, Obama’s share of the black vote was down slightly from four years ago. But in some key states, turnout was higher and had an impact, said David Bositis, an expert on black politics and voting at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
“Blacks made up 15 percent of the electorate in Ohio, up from 11 percent in 2008. And 97 percent of those votes went for Obama, leading Bositis to say Obama’s margin of victory in the state came from black voters.”
Tribe Looks to End Old Exile, but Casino Plans Lead to Conflict
By Dan Frosch
AKELA FLATS, N.M. — On a dust-swept strip of Interstate, not far from the Mexican border, sits a small rest stop where weary truckers trickle in day and night, slump down at the handful of tables inside and order a half-pound burger or a cup of coffee.
Unbeknown to many who end up here, they have happened upon the land of the Fort Sill Apache, the newest Indian reservation in the country and, at just 30 acres, the tiniest.
No tribal members live on the reservation yet. The Fort Sill Apache, who trace their lineage to Geronimo, were driven from New Mexico more than a century ago, and the largest population concentration now resides in Oklahoma. But they still consider this area their ancestral home.
Now, one year after the federal government designated the roadside plot as the tribe’s sole reservation, the Fort Sill Apache are mired in a dispute over their efforts to transform the lonesome site into a casino.
The hope, said Jeff Haozous, the tribal chairman, is that a casino will generate enough money to buy additional land and compel some of the 700 enrolled tribal members to come back.
“There is a serious difference between our situation and any other case, in that we’re returning to a place from which we’ve been exiled for over a century,” Mr. Haozous said as a customer strolled past a wall of photos showing stone-faced Apaches, some draped in traditional garb and others in stiff suits, gazing out on the room.
According to tribal history, the Fort Sill Apache descend primarily from the Warm Springs and Chiricahua Apache bands, who were held as prisoners of war by the United States government in Alabama and Florida before being moved to Fort Sill, Okla.
The tribe bought the New Mexico parcel in 1998 for $30,000, and the land was put in trust for it by the federal government in 2002.
Sitting between Tucson and El Paso on Interstate 10, the rest stop is a natural way station for travelers and has been operating as the Apache Homelands Entertainment Center since 2008.
But casino gambling on Indian lands is a highly competitive and frequently controversial business that can pit tribes against federal and state regulators — and even one another. Whether the Fort Sill Apache will get approval for a casino is unclear.
The federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act largely prohibits gambling on lands acquired after Oct. 17, 1988, with certain exceptions. Previous efforts by the tribe to get approval for gambling have failed.
In 2008, believing that the National Indian Gaming Commission, which helps regulate Indian casinos, would ultimately approve their plans, the Fort Sill Apache tried to open a temporary bingo hall here.
But Bill Richardson, the governor at the time, ordered the state police to block access to the building, saying the tribe lacked the authority to operate a casino. The next year, the National Indian Gaming Commission issued a violation to the tribe for running a gambling operation on the site.
Phillip Thompson, the tribe’s lawyer, said the Fort Sill Apache had appealed the violation and contend that they should qualify for gambling based on their unique history.
“If they are not allowed to develop anything in Oklahoma or New Mexico, where is their existence?” he said, adding that the Fort Sill Apache also own a casino in Lawton, Okla., but are prohibited from acquiring additional land there without permission from three other tribes in the area.
This spring, the Fort Sill Apache also filed a gambling application with the Interior Department, which can grant an exception to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
A spokeswoman for the department, Nedra Darling, said it would determine whether gambling is in the tribe’s best interest and whether it would be detrimental to the surrounding area. If the application is approved, the department will also seek the support of Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico, who could potentially block the casino.
So far, Ms. Martinez has opposed the idea.
“When the land was placed in trust, there was an understanding that the tribe would not take part in gaming,” Scott Darnell, a spokesman for the governor, said in an e-mail. “It was a premise of the discussion at the time and was based on representations made by the tribe.”
Reaction in New Mexico’s Indian Country, where tribes operate more than a dozen casinos, has been mixed.
The Pojoaque Pueblo wrote a letter to Mr. Haozous expressing support for the Fort Sill Apache’s “economic initiatives.” That tribe’s two casinos are some 300 miles away.
The Mescalero Apache, who operate the Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort and Casino about 150 miles away, the nearest tribal gambling operation in New Mexico, are against the proposal, Mr. Haozous said.
Sandra Platero, vice president of the Mescalero, declined to comment about the issue.
In nearby Deming, some hope that the casino will provide an economic boon to Luna County, which has an unemployment rate of about 12 percent.
“I think it’s a good idea,” said Linda Franklin, Deming’s mayor pro tem. “They have proven they are a tribe. They are from the area. I think we all need to live and work together.”
On Friday, the tribe held a celebration here, commemorating the first anniversary of its reservation proclamation.
Mr. Haozous said he hoped that a decision on the casino would come next year.
“This would be the achievement of a goal that has been held by the Chiricahua people since 1886, when they were removed from the Southwest,” he said. “To return home.”
Hostess going out of business
From ASSOCIATED PRESS
IRVING, Texas — Hostess Brands says it is going out of business, closing plants that make Twinkies and Wonder Bread and laying off all of its 18,500 workers.
The Irving, Texas, company says a nationwide worker strike crippled its ability to make and deliver its products at several locations.
Hostess was planning to ask a court for permission to shut down its money-losing business this morning, The Post exclusively reported.
Hostess had warned employees that it would file a motion in US Bankruptcy Court to unwind its business and sell assets if plant operations didn't return to normal levels by Thursday evening.
The bankrupt maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, under plans that could still change, had planned to ask Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Drain for a Monday hearing to start shutting down the business, two sources close to the situation said.
If it gains court approval, Hostess would start liquidating during the last week in November, the sources said.
A Hostess spokesman declined comment.
Hostess is seeking a shutdown of the money-losing business after members of the Bakers Union started striking this week.
The thinly capitalized company cannot afford such a disruption.
Meanwhile, Hostess is being hurt on another front: a sizable customer, Costco, in the last few days booted Hostess’ hamburger and hot dog bun lines at nine locations, mainly in Long Island, in favor of Schmidt Baking Co.’s Blue Ribbon Bread, two sources close to that situation said.
Once a baker loses shelf space to a rival, it will likely not win it back, the sources said.
Hostess is not filling shelves at a crucial retail period. Thanksgiving week is considered one of the biggest of the year in the baking industry.
“There have been a lot of questions raised among customers that are very nervous,” a Hostess source said.
Walmart, which represents perhaps 40 percent of Hostess’ business, is weighing giving Hostess the boot to avoid the risk of having empty shelves, sources said.
Last month, bankrupt Hostess won court approval to impose a new contract on its workers that contained an 8 percent pay cut and slashed health benefits by 17 percent.
If Hostess liquidates, it is likely that competitors would buy the best brands — but not keep the plants or Hostess’ 18,000-plus workers, a source close to the situation said.
Additional reporting by Josh Kosman
The silent issue that could doom President Obama in 2012 election
Unlike 2008, race works against President this time in a big way
By Mike Lupica, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
There will be so many things to talk about with Obama vs. Romney from here to November, but the one that nobody will want to talk about very much in polite society, even in what has a chance to be the meanest presidential campaign for all times, is race.
It works against the President this time, in a big way.
Last time, there were just weren’t enough reasons for enough white voters to vote against the black guy, as much as they wanted to. This time there are plenty. And please don’t believe a single poll on this issue.
If there is one great truth about polling in this country, at least when it comes to race, is that people lie through their teeth. Mostly because they don’t want to look like some lousy, scummy bigot — even talking to an anonymous voice on the telephone.
Of course this election will be about the economy, and Obama’s record on it, no matter how much broad-daylight looting of this country went on during the eight years of Bush-Cheney.
You want to know why George W. Bush is still the only living former President with an approval rating under 50%? It isn’t just because of all the Americans killed and wounded in a war built on lies in Iraq. It is also because of the economy Obama inherited from him, one nobody wanted to touch with a stick at the time.
Oh, Obama ran against the Bush economy once. But won’t be able to do it again, even though he’s sure going to try. He has to run on his own record this time, on the economy, on jobs. Does Romney have a better plan? He does not. His plan, his platform — and the reason Obama is in huge trouble against him — is as simple as Romney sounds sometimes on the stump:
He’s not Barack Obama in 2012 the way Obama wasn’t Bush in 2008.
“There has only been one real plan from the Republicans, really for the last four years,” Mario Cuomo says. “Get rid of Obama. That’s it. Now they try to convince you that whomever you replace him with will be better, even though that should be an absurdly childish and stupid and perhaps even greedy notion.”
Still: This isn’t ’08 for Obama.
It means he’s not only NOT running against Bush, he is not running against old John McCain, a terrible candidate, or Sarah Palin.
When it was over four years ago, even people who didn’t want to vote for a black presidential candidate — but did in the end — congratulated themselves on America finally putting a black man in the White House.
It won’t work that way this time. Race won’t be the only issue, not in a world of these gas prices, not in an America with this kind of unemployment. But you better believe it will be a huge issue.
Two things that nobody will want to talk about so much in the months between now and November? Race and Romney’s religion.
But race wins that one every time, first-round knockout, just because race is always the main event in America, no matter how enlightened we like to think we are.
“You know what race does in this election?” an old Kennedy Democrat I know is saying on Thursday. “It takes Mormonism off the board. Gone, goodbye. So there’s that. And here’s something else that works against the President. Romney’s not picking a bad vice-president. His pick might not be very exciting. But it’s not going to be Palin.”
Suddenly Barack Obama, four years later, is an underdog all over again. It is what he was when he took on Hillary Clinton, took on the Clinton machine, in the Democratic primary season of ’08. It is what he is against Romney right now, will be in the fall unless the economy comes back big.
Maybe he thinks that Romney’s record at Bain Capital can save him, maybe he can rally his base in an election against a poster boy for the 1 percenters in this country like Mitt Romney, whose idea of being a regular guy in a debate is making a $10,000 bet with Rick Perry. And maybe he can save himself in the debates and with speeches, because this is a President who has told people more than once, “Speeches got me here.”
Obama got a perfect storm last time: Bush and Cheney and Iraq and the economy crashing and McCain and the lightweight former governor of Alaska. He got people of color and he got kids. Except now the kids that he needs are coming out of college and can’t find jobs.
There were so many reasons to vote for Barack Obama, not nearly enough good reasons not to vote against the first black candidate for President. Not this time.
