Unemployment and blacks - When white America is in recession, black America is in an economic depression

File this under: Black folk Continue To Get Screwed!

Get this, as reported by Brian Williams at The Militant, In August the official unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent as companies slashed jobs for the 20th straight month. This was up from 9.4 percent a month earlier, the Labor Department reported. According to preliminary government figures, 216,000 jobs were cut.

The broader unemployed and underemployed rate—which includes 9.1 million workers forced to accept only part-time hours and 2.3 million the government doesn’t count, claiming they haven’t looked for work over the past four weeks—rose to 16.8 percent. That’s more than 26 million workers.

Among the 14.9 million officially listed as unemployed last month, 5 million have been out of work for more than half a year, many soon facing a halt to unemployment benefit payments. The official unemployment rate has doubled over the past two years, with employers eliminating some 6.9 million jobs since December 2007. “Most economists expect the rate to top 10 percent in coming months and stay over 9 percent through 2010,” reported the Wall Street Journal.

Get this, The August unemployment rate for teenagers rose to 25.5 percent, the highest since the government began keeping these records in 1948. Unemployment among Blacks is 15.1 percent. There is more, Labor Department figures show that in 19 cities, the official unemployment rate is at 15 percent or higher. El Centro, California, and Yuma, Arizona, are among the highest with unemployment rates of 30 percent and 26 percent, respectively.

Its getting bad folks. Whirlpool is one of several big companies making major job cuts. The world’s largest appliance maker, which announced August 28 it will close its Evansville, Indiana, plant, eliminating 1,100 jobs.

American Airlines announced in early September it will furlough 228 flight attendants and put 244 more on involuntary leave.

“The number of private-sector jobs is now slightly below the level of August 1999,” reported the Washington Post, “meaning that a decade has passed without any net creation of non-government jobs.”

The average workweek is 33.1 hours, making it increasingly difficult for those with jobs to make ends meet. The number of people turning to food stamps “has surged as their hours and wages erode,” stated the Financial Times. “Some 40 percent of the families now on food stamps have ‘earned income,’ up from 25 percent two years ago.”More HERE

Get this, as reported by Eamon Javers at Politico, The president’s chief economic adviserunemployment rate could stay “unacceptably high” for years to come — a situation that would seriously complicate Barack Obama’s ability to convince Americans that he’s beating back the recession. warned Friday that the nation’s

“The level of unemployment is unacceptably high,” National Economic Council Director Larry Summers said Friday. “And will, by all forecasts, remain unacceptably high for a number of years.”

Summers’ comments came in a briefing with reporters ahead of Obama’s speech in New York City on Monday, marking the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, an event widely regarded as having created a panic that caused the global economic meltdown.

Even with his gloomy forecast for unemployment, Summers said the economy is getting better and made the case that Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package and other fiscal rescue steps headed off even more economic pain. Read more: HERE

AAPP: So, When white America is in recession, black America is in an economic depression. Now the question is can the Barack Obama administration do anything to help the Americans most hurt by the recession - Black folks. Or is it on us to get our hustle on?