The Struggle Continues

Late afternoon today MSNBC released an article called “Economic recovery? Not for Ferguson or BlackAmerica.” In the article author Jane C. Timm explains that President Obama declared “with strong job creation and rising wages, we’ve risen from recession.” Yet, for Ferguson, Missouri and black America the recovery still hasn’t arrive. Connie Razza, who is the Director of Strategic Research & Technology at the Center for Popular Democracy’s, told MSNBC that “Black unemployment rates are still at the height of the national unemployment rates during the Great Recession.” Despite American unemployment is down to 5.5 percent, Black unemployment is at 10.4 percent. According to the PEW research center, Blacks have long faced unemployment rates that are double those of white workers all the way back since 1954. It even stats that the recession has hurt Black America, and the St. Louis region, particularly hard. “It’s a recession of wealth in the sense that a whole lot of homes in Ferguson are still under water.” Dave Robertson, a political science professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, told msnbc. “In places like Ferguson, it’s not coming back quickly. It’s not just unemployment, its poor wages, it’s the underemployment, and it’s the part-time work.”

From reading article the author stats, despite of the growth of the economy black Americans are still living in the outside of the success of the better United States. Despite black Americans having high unemployment rates there was a study that showed it has been high for awhile, but it goes further than that. It goes from not having enough money to survive for themselves and their family because of low wages. It also goes to say they’re not working long enough hours to make a living. I’d say the author did an excellent job tackling the issue with facts backing her up. What also helps her out were the people that were interviewed that know how rough it has been for people trying to live in these conditions.